BUSINESS BEFORE QUESTIONS

Beverley Freemen Bill [ Lords]

Bill read the Third time and passed, without amendment.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS

FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE

The Secretary of State was asked-

Zimbabwe

Henry Bellingham: When he next expects to meet his EU counterparts to discuss EU relations with Zimbabwe.

David Miliband: Zimbabwe will be considered by EU Foreign Ministers during the course of February, and I look forward to having discussions then. The UK and the EU are strong supporters of the global political agreement-the GPA-and we will continue to press for progress. We welcome the recent agreement of the GPA signatories to establish key commissions, and we urge implementation of that agreement.

Henry Bellingham: I am grateful to the Foreign Secretary for that reply. Does he agree that, although the economic news coming out of Zimbabwe is now more promising, there are still huge concerns about human rights abuses and about the detention of Movement for Democratic Change MPs such as Roy Bennett? Does he also agree that the existing sanctions should not be lifted until those issues have been dealt with?

David Miliband: Yes, I agree that numerous aspects of the situation in Zimbabwe are of deep concern. It is right to say that, over the past year, the economic situation has changed in a quite fundamental way, although it is not quite right to refer to the detention of Roy Bennett as a continued threat to him through a legal case.
	In respect of sanctions, we have made it clear that they can be lifted only in a calibrated way, as progress is made. That is something that we will discuss. I do not think that it is right to say that the choice is between lifting all sanctions and lifting none at all. We have to calibrate our response to the progress on the ground, and, above all, to be guided by what the MDC says to us about the conditions under which it is working and leading the country.

Kate Hoey: Does the Foreign Secretary share my concern that President Zuma of South Africa has not challenged Mugabe and the MDC fully to carry out the terms of the global political agreement? He seems continually to be urging compromise on the MDC.

David Miliband: President Zuma is playing a careful hand, and he is playing it rather skilfully. The Prime Minister was able to discuss Zimbabwe, among other things, with him at the Commonwealth conference in November. President Zuma will be making a state visit to the UK in early March, and I have had discussions with my South African opposite number. The position of the South Africans has certainly been to urge adherence to the global political agreement, which requires compromise on all sides, and I do not think that they have been less than even-handed in the way in which they have done that.

Malcolm Rifkind: Should not all European Union Governments recognise that Morgan Tsvangirai was right to enter into a coalition with Robert Mugabe, if there was to be a prospect of peaceful change? Is it not worth remembering that even Nelson Mandela entered into a coalition with the white South African National party, and that Solidarity in Poland entered into a coalition with the communists? They all recognised that change has to be gradual if it is to have any chance of producing peaceful stability.

David Miliband: No European country, to my knowledge, has condemned Mr. Tsvangirai for the move that he made. I am not sure what the implication of the right hon. and learned Gentleman's question was, but I hope that it was not to question the fact that this is a transitional agreement whose conclusion will be a proper democratic election that respects the will of the Zimbabwean people. There was a hint in what he was saying that there is perhaps-to echo the term used by my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey)-rather more compromise with Robert Mugabe than the mood of the House would wish. Mr. Tsvangirai's position has been well established, however: he has shown himself to be a man not only of principle but of competence, and we should support him strongly.

Fiona Mactaggart: There is one EU member country that has a very direct effect on Zimbabwe, through the Kimberley diamond certification process. Belgium is a member of that process. Will the Foreign Secretary speak to his Belgian counterpart about the human rights abuses in the diamond mines in Zimbabwe, and discuss whether it would be right to threaten suspension of the Kimberley process in order to ensure that the human rights of people working in the diamond mines are protected?

David Miliband: As it happens, I now have another new Belgian opposite number in the new Belgian Government. I spoke to him at the end of last week. I will be happy to talk to him about a range of issues, including Zimbabwe, when I next meet him.

Keith Simpson: The Foreign Secretary has talked about specific EU targeted sanctions, and said that they should be calibrated. Will he explain which of the current EU sanctions are really having an effect and encouraging ZANU-PF to move towards removing the human rights abuses that have been in place for so long?

David Miliband: The hon. Gentleman will know that a range of EU sanctions is in place. Some of them refer to individuals, others to so-called parastatal organisations. Different sanctions have been brought in at different points, and different sanctions are the responsibility of different ministries in the Zimbabwean system. Some are controlled by the MDC. I would be happy to give the hon. Gentleman a more detailed answer, but I think that it might detain the House beyond the time available for the question. I believe that EU sanctions have helped to send a strong message, and that they have had a practical effect without hurting the Zimbabwean people, which would have been a sanction too far.

Middle East

Andrew Rosindell: What his most recent assessment is of progress towards peace in the middle east; and if he will make a statement.

David Miliband: There is a huge degree of concern in the middle east and around the world at the deadlock in the drive for a credible route to a credible state for the Palestinians, enabling them to live alongside a secure Israel. The UK shares this concern and therefore strongly supports the efforts of Senator Mitchell to establish such a process with such a goal.

Andrew Rosindell: Does the Foreign Secretary share my horror that the rocket attacks from Gaza against Israel continue unabated? Will he tell us what the Government are doing to put pressure on the Palestinian authorities to end this outrage and what they are doing to jump start the peace process with Senator Mitchell via the European Union?

David Miliband: I am happy to share with the hon. Gentleman a condemnation of rocket attacks, although I think he has to be very careful indeed before he puts those rocket attacks at the door of the Palestinian Authority, which he sought to do. As he will know, the rocket attacks come from Gaza, and the tragedy of the Palestinians is that the Palestinian Authority does not have control over Gaza. I hope that the hon. Gentleman does not want to send a message from the House that there is condemnation of President Abbas or Prime Minister Fayyad-who, frankly, offer the best hope for the Palestinians-rather than of Hamas, which is sending the rockets.

Gerald Kaufman: Is my right hon. Friend aware that I returned yesterday from leading a delegation of 60 European parliamentarians from 13 countries, including 11 from this Parliament, to Gaza where we saw for ourselves the appalling destruction inflicted on civilian life by the Israelis. We visited a United Nations school where dozens of people seeking refuge were killed or maimed and heard from children how they saw their parents being killed before their eyes. When is action going to be taken to lift this illegal siege and bring justice to the Palestinians?

David Miliband: My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that the other side of the coin to the rocket attacks from Gaza is the siege of Gaza. The flow of humanitarian aid has proceeded from a trickle after the Gaza war to a rather larger number of lorries and a greater volume of aid getting through, but he is also right to say that the current levels of aid going in are below what the United Nations says is the minimum necessary to establish decent life in Gaza, never mind to improve or reconstruct the situation. He will know that resolution 1860, passed by the United Nations Security Council about a year ago under British sponsorship, calls both for an end to arms smuggling and the firing of rockets and for the lifting of the blockade on Gaza. It is important to say that that applies from the Egyptian as well as the Israeli side.

Crispin Blunt: Particularly as the Egyptians tighten the border around Rafah, what is the Foreign Secretary's understanding of the responsibilities of the Israelis under the Geneva convention towards Gaza as an occupied territory?

David Miliband: I am not going to give the hon. Gentleman a legal answer, but a political one. The responsibilities of both the Israeli Government and the Egyptians are laid out very clearly in UN Security Council resolution 1860. The Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, South (Mr. Lewis), who has responsibility for the middle east, was in Cairo last week. It is important to send a message of support for President Mubarak's recent meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu. The Egyptian effort to play a positive role in restarting the peace talks is something that I welcomed in private discussion with Egyptian Foreign Minister Aboul Gheit last week and the whole House should support it more generally.

Louise Ellman: Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is outrageous that Tzipi Livni, a strong supporter of the two-state solution, is unable to visit this country to discuss the way through to peace, providing justice for both Israelis and Palestinians, for fear of arrest? When is action going to be taken to stop this deplorable state of affairs?

David Miliband: It is very important that this country, as a permanent member of the Security Council, is able to talk to all leaders from around the world who are involved in conflicts and disputes, including those from Israel, including Mrs. Livni. That is not in contradiction to our determination to uphold our responsibilities for so-called universal jurisdiction; it is a cross-party consensus in the House that we must be the people who uphold international law on war crimes, which we did in 2005 in respect of an Afghan warlord. We do ourselves no good by preventing ourselves from having a serious discussion with the Israeli Government or the Israeli opposition on these important issues.

David Lidington: Does the Foreign Secretary agree that we will not get peace or reconciliation in the middle east unless the people of Gaza can see some hope not only of reconstruction, but of a normal life in the future? To that end, what representations has he been making to the Governments of Egypt and Israel about reopening the crossing points further, and about whether an international presence on the ground might be needed as part of any agreement?

David Miliband: This issue is raised by the Prime Minister, myself and the International Development Secretary in all our contacts with both the Israeli Government and the Egyptians. The hon. Gentleman is right to point, as have other hon. Members, to the fact that Gaza has to be part of the solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It cannot be left until last. However, the Palestinian divisions do neither them nor the prospects of peace any good.
	The hon. Gentleman will also know that the Gaza issue has become tied up with the question of the continued detention of Corporal Shalit. This is a further complication, and it is in everybody's interests both that Corporal Shalit is released as soon as possible and that the Israeli Government and the Egyptians honour their responsibilities as enunciated in resolution 1860 as soon as possible.

Richard Burden: Did my right hon. Friend see last night's "Panorama" report, which sketched very graphically the systematic dispossession and expropriation of Palestinian properties in East Jerusalem? It appears to many of us that Israel feels it can do this without consequence, even though the international community may express displeasure. Will he say what the consequences for Israel could be if it continues with that illegal policy?

David Miliband: I am sorry to have to tell my hon. Friend that I did not watch last night's "Panorama" programme as I was otherwise occupied. The point he makes is important, however, because, as we know, Jerusalem is the tinderbox to beat all tinderboxes, and the process of evictions in East Jerusalem-never mind the settlement building-is a direct threat to the achievement of the sort of peace and stability that would be vital for any peace talks to make progress. It is important that the international community does express displeasure-to repeat the word my hon. Friend used-and it is also very important that all sides honour the commitments required of them under United Nations and other resolutions.

British Victims of Crime

Greg Mulholland: What support his Department provides to British citizens who are victims of crime abroad.

Chris Bryant: The support we provide to British citizens who are victims of crime abroad varies enormously from person to person. It might include the following: giving general information about local police and legal procedures; giving details of local lawyers, doctors, hospitals and translators; contacting relatives or friends; or providing specific help if a British national has suffered rape or serious assault, or is in hospital.

Greg Mulholland: Mark Aveyard died tragically in suspicious circumstances in Gran Canaria, and there is clear evidence that the Spanish police have not properly investigated his death. However, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office staff's response to the grieving family was to say, "Go and find yourself a Spanish lawyer." I am afraid that that was not an acceptable response in helping a family whose son may have been the victim of a serious crime abroad. Will the Minister meet me and the family to discuss this very serious case?

Chris Bryant: Of course I am happy to meet the hon. Gentleman and the family. He and I have already exchanged several letters on the issue, and I send my condolences to the family of Mr. Aveyard. This must be particularly distressing for a family in a country where they do not fully understand the legal system or speak the language. However, the difficulty for the Foreign Office and consular staff is that, as I think the hon. Gentleman will accept, it is not possible for them to provide legal advice, and often the most important piece of advice we can give is to make sure that people have access to a lawyer who speaks English.

Tom Watson: On crime abroad, Google last week identified e-mail accounts that had been hacked into by people based in China. Hillary Clinton has said this is so serious that she has raised it with the Chinese. Does the Foreign Office intend to do the same, and what reassurance can the Minister give the Foreign Office staff who use the Microsoft browsers about which the Germans and the French have said, "Please don't use"?

Chris Bryant: I am not quite sure what this has got to do with British citizens abroad, but my hon. Friend is, of course, absolutely right to say that we should take up every instance of human rights abuses in China with the Chinese authorities, and we do so constantly. A vital element of the free society that we aspire to for China is free access to the internet and the ability to live without censorship.

Iran

David Amess: What his latest assessment is of the political situation in Iran; and if he will make a statement.

David Miliband: The Iranian Government continue to face protests from their own people following the disputed elections in June. The abuse of the human rights of demonstrators has fuelled concern in the country. The Iranian Government's problems are exacerbated by a poor economic situation of their own making. Attempts to blame the United Kingdom for any of the post-election disturbances are not only wrong but an insult to the intelligence of the Iranian people.

David Amess: I am sure that the Foreign Secretary will accept that Iran is the biggest sponsor of terror against British troops in Afghanistan and Iraq as a result of its supplying explosively formed penetrators to the Taliban and al-Qaeda. If that is the case, what are the British Government trying to do to stop the supply of these weapons and funds to Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon and Gaza?

David Miliband: The hon. Gentleman is right to say that in a wide range of countries there is evidence of Iranian support for terrorist groups. However, I do not think one should believe that the sum of the problems in Afghanistan is down to the Iranian Government. Iran has a border with Afghanistan, it has to deal with a range of problems that are exported from Afghanistan to Iran and it has a range of links with a variety of groups in Afghanistan. In many of our debates about Afghanistan we have talked about the importance of engagement with its neighbours, but I do not think that that particular neighbour is the primary source of the problem in Afghanistan, however much it has failed to play the sort of constructive role across the country that is important. One final point that should not be forgotten is that in the west of Afghanistan-in provinces such as Herat-the Iranian influence is strong but the situation is relatively peaceful.

Tony Lloyd: In the context of Iran's nuclear power, be it civil or for weapons, have we made any progress in persuading Moscow that an Iranian nuclear weapon would be much more immediately threatening to the Russians than it would be to us in western Europe?

David Miliband: My hon. Friend makes an important point. All the members of the E3 plus 3-the European three plus America, China and Russia-oppose the development of an Iranian nuclear weapons programme. All of us support an Iranian civilian nuclear programme, as long as we can be sure that it is not leaking into a military programme. That applies as much to the Russian authorities, for the obvious reasons that he points out, as it does to the other members of the E3 plus 3 and the rest of the United Nations Security Council. After all, on five occasions the Security Council has said to the Iranian regime that it needs to take action to comply with its international obligations and on three occasions it has imposed sanctions towards that end.

Edward Davey: Earlier this month, Secretary Clinton said:
	"Our goal is to pressure the Iranian Government, without contributing to the suffering of ordinary Iranians".
	It thus seems clear that the Obama Administration are not going gung-ho for a new round or an early escalation of major new economic sanctions. Do the Government also see a danger in additional early economic sanctions, in that they might serve to bolster President Ahmadinejad against the growing green movement? Might it be better to push harder with the engagement strategy and limit any future sanctions to targeted, smart sanctions against the main figures of the regime in Tehran?

David Miliband: Nobody is in favour of dumb sanctions; smart sanctions are obviously better than dumb ones. Sanctions need to be properly directed towards the objectives on which they are designed to have an effect. The hon. Gentleman must not misrepresent the American position. The choice that he poses between imposing sanctions and hurting the Iranian people or doing nothing does not appear to be the right approach. There is a wide range of agreement on our need to explore the whole range of sanctions opportunities, because over the past three months Iran has made it clear that it is not willing to have the intensive dialogue with the international community that was called for and it has not given a positive response on the so-called Tehran research reactor deal, which would be one way of building confidence with the international community.

Edward Davey: Will the Foreign Secretary be a little clearer on the Government's thinking on the type of sanctions that they wish to see? What weight do the Government put on the views of the opposition to the Tehran regime when they consider this matter? How does he assess the risk that major new economic sanctions across the board might assist Iran's Supreme Leader and President in resisting the internal opposition that they face?

David Miliband: Tempting as it is to give a public commentary on the sort of sanctions that are being developed, it would not be wise to do so. Let me give the hon. Gentleman one obvious example: when one is considering financial sanctions, it does not make sense to give six, eight or 10 weeks' notice to some of the entities that might be involved of the sort of financial sanctions that might be coming in. For obvious reasons, we have to make this a process that is conducted in private. However, I am telling the hon. Gentleman that we believe that financial sanctions, to take one example, have an important role to play in exerting pressure at the appropriate points in the regime and not affecting the Iranian people.

Jane Kennedy: Is it not true that the Iranian regime rejected a visit of Members of the European Parliament recently for fear that they might meet opposition politicians in Iran?  [ Interruption. ] Will my right hon. Friend extend an invitation to opposition members in Iran to visit Britain to visit him as Foreign Secretary and will he offer the opportunity to Members of this Parliament to meet them?

David Miliband: I did not know about the visit by the European Parliament. In contrast to the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), I think that it is a good thing that the European Parliament takes an interest. He will also be pleased to know that the EU has imposed tougher sanctions on Iran than those mandated by the UN Security Council. That is one further example of the way in which Europe can play a constructive role.
	I know what my right hon. Friend is saying about the importance of understanding the position of the Iranian opposition. Given the incessant attempts of the Iranian regime to brand the opposition as British or western stooges, we have to be very careful about how we engage with them. It is absolutely clear that this is an indigenous movement led by patriotic Iranians who want to see their society change. It is not the plaything of the international community.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The comprehensiveness of the exchanges is in many ways illuminating and useful to the House, but I must emphasise that there are a lot of questions that we need to get through and that we must make somewhat sharper progress.

William Hague: Further to the exchange between the Foreign Secretary and the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey), will the Foreign Secretary agree that smart sanctions that hurt the interests of the Iranian Government but not the ordinary people of Iran might include-these are things that one can talk about in advance-a ban on arms sales to Iran, a tough United Nations weapons shipping inspections regime and action against the interests of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps? Will he say whether these are sanctions that the British Government will be in favour of, notwithstanding the objections of the hon. Gentleman on the Bench next door?

David Miliband: In the interests of a short answer, there is already an EU arms embargo that the Government were happy to vote for. That is a pretty clear indication that we consider that to be a worthwhile effort.

William Hague: I was referring to what might happen at the United Nations. On that matter, does the Foreign Secretary agree that we have now reached a position where stronger sanctions from the UN on Iran are justified and necessary? Is it true that the lack of agreement at the UN Security Council means that there is now little prospect of a further UN resolution on this matter for several months? Do the British Government find that acceptable, and what action will they be taking to try to speed up the process?

David Miliband: Yes and no, Mr. Speaker. If you will permit me to give a slightly longer answer, yes, it is correct that the failure of the Iranian Government to give any kind of positive response to the suggestion of more talks to discuss their nuclear programme or former director general el-Baradei's proposal for a Tehran research reactor means that we have to consider a sanctions package, but, no, it is not right to say that there is no prospect of achieving that for several months. I think that it will take some time, but I do not believe that this can, should or will be punted into the long grass.

Aung San Suu Kyi

Rosie Cooper: What recent steps he has taken to encourage the release of Aung San Suu Kyi.

Ivan Lewis: We continue to call for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi. The Prime Minister, Foreign Secretary and I have discussed her situation with Burma's neighbours and the UN Secretary-General. We have made it clear that the elections cannot be credible if political prisoners are not free and able to engage in an inclusive process.

Rosie Cooper: While the world watches, Aung San Suu Kyi's appeal against her sentence is in its final stages. Can the Minister indicate what real chance there is that she will be released? What intelligence does he have on the situation?

Ivan Lewis: I say to my hon. Friend that the charges were trumped up and the trial was bogus. In any decent, objective, reasonable criminal justice system, they would have been thrown out, Aung San Suu Kyi would have been acquitted and we could have moved on. The reality is that we are not very optimistic about the regime and its behaviour towards Aung San Suu Kyi or the other 2,100 political prisoners.

Burma (Election)

John Randall: What steps he plans to take to seek to ensure that the 2010 election in Burma is fair.

Ivan Lewis: We have maintained international pressure on the Burmese regime. We have lobbied China, India and Association of South East Nations members to recognise that only free and fair elections will lead to a stable and secure Burma. We support the UN Secretary-General's continued engagement. Tough EU sanctions will remain in place in the absence of any progress.

John Randall: Can the Minister give us an idea of whether any independent election monitoring teams will be allowed in to observe the elections?

Ivan Lewis: I am afraid to say that we have no expectation that international observers will be allowed to observe the election. It must be clear that without the release of political prisoners and a commitment to an inclusive process in respect of opposition and ethnic groups, the forthcoming elections in Burma will not be recognised by the international community-indeed, they will be entirely illegitimate.

Lindsay Hoyle: Does my hon. Friend agree that not only do we expect openness, transparency and people to be able to watch the election, but more importantly, we expect the democratic result to be accepted and the military junta not to interfere in the end result?

Ivan Lewis: I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. There is only one difficulty: the constitution that underpins the election is deeply flawed. It is designed to perpetuate military rule in Burma. It is therefore important that there is no interference in the elections. As long as the elections are contested on the current constitution, whatever the outcome they cannot be recognised by the international community.

Alistair Carmichael: Do we not have to be realistic and realise that the elections will inevitably not be fair and democratic, but that they nevertheless present a real challenge for democracy campaigners within Burma? Will the Minister take his lead from the democracy movement, in particular the NLD, in determining the approach that is to be taken by this country in relation to the conduct and the outcome of the elections?

Ivan Lewis: Of course, the hon. Gentleman is right. It is not for us to determine the decision by the opposition parties whether to participate in the forthcoming elections. It is equally important that the entire international community gives a united response to any election outcome. If there were any suggestion that some members of the international community attempted in any way to legitimise that outcome, that would be very dangerous in terms of strengthening the regime. What we seek to achieve is maximum unity of response on the basis that the election will be fought on a flawed constitution.

EU Budget

Philip Hollobone: What recent discussions he has had with his EU counterparts on progress on reform of the EU budget; and if he will make a statement.

Chris Bryant: Reform of the EU budget was last discussed at the December European Council. Heads of Government called on the Commission to produce a report in order for the Council to lay out its priorities during 2010. The Government remain committed to far-reaching reform of the EU budget.

Philip Hollobone: When Tony Blair abolished Margaret Thatcher's rebate, we were promised significant reform of the EU budget and of the common agricultural policy, instead of which Britain's membership fee for the European Union has more than doubled, there is no significant reform to the common agricultural policy, and EU accounts remain dodgy at best. Is this not another broken promise by a failed Labour Government?

Chris Bryant: If the hon. Gentleman wants to talk about broken promises, he should speak to the leader of his own party. I am sure the hon. Gentleman is pretty depressed by the end of the cast-iron guarantee, but he should not mischaracterise what happened. The abatement still exists. It is worth billions of pounds for the UK. We, however, not only willed the end-namely, the enlargement of the European Union-but we were also prepared to will the means, by being prepared to pay an element of the advantage that other countries coming into the EU would provide to the UK in the form of trade and jobs.

Gregory Campbell: When can citizens of the United Kingdom expect to see a reasonable and fair deal for membership of the European Union?

Chris Bryant: I think that all citizens of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland get a very good deal out of the EU. It guarantees jobs, and more than 50 per cent. of this country's trade is wholly dependent on our membership of the EU. If the hon. Gentleman wants to take Britain out of the EU, he should table a motion.  [ Interruption. ]

Mr. Speaker: Order. I know that the Minister for Europe has the effect of winding up Opposition Members, but they must do their best to contain themselves.

Cyprus

Anthony D Wright: What recent assessment he has made of the political situation in Cyprus.

Chris Bryant: Last week's talks in Cyprus were a positive start to intensified negotiations. The Prime Minister has spoken, I think, to both leaders this week. We remain a keen supporter of the Cyprus settlement process and continue to believe that it presents a unique opportunity to solve this historic and difficult problem.

Anthony D Wright: I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. I am sure that there are hundreds of Greek Cypriots in my constituency who will welcome the talks continuing. However, one thing to be regarded as a success in Cyprus is the Committee on Missing Persons, which is bi-communal. It has been supported by significant funding from across the international community, and has been hugely successful-indeed, only last year one of my constituents, Andrew Michael, was able to find closure when he went to the island to bury his father, who had been missing. Will my hon. Friend the Minister give me an assurance that the funding for this important project-from both the UK and the international community-will continue?

Chris Bryant: I visited Cyprus last year. When I was there, I met the people who run the Committee on Missing Persons. The important forensic work that they do is very moving, and my hon. Friend is right to say that it gives people an opportunity to find closure through knowing what happened many years ago.
	I am aware of the significant financial needs that committee members think that they will have in the next couple of years. We will work with them to make sure that those needs are met.

Mark Francois: In fairness, the Minister sometimes winds his own side up too.
	The Minister will be aware that elections are due in northern Cyprus in April, and that not all the candidates are fully behind the current talks process, so there is a danger that the window for achieving a lasting settlement is beginning to close. Given that, what more can Britain do to encourage all the parties, including the Turkish Government, to demonstrate greater flexibility, so that this truly important opportunity to achieve a lasting settlement for Cyprus is not lost?

Chris Bryant: I am grateful for the ringing endorsement from the hon. Gentleman.
	The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to say that this is a very important moment. The two leaders have known each other for many years, and both have staked their political careers on trying to come to a resolution of a situation on the island that feels both tragic and morally indefensible. I was in Istanbul this weekend, when I spoke to Egemen Bagis and argued with him about the need for Turkey to implement the Ankara protocol, to which it has already signed up. It is clearly important that we do our job of work in persuading both Greek and Turkish counterparts to do their fair share, but the proposal that we have put on the table is that 50 per cent. of the land currently in UK sovereign bases will be made available to a united island, once there is a resolution.

UK and Iran

Ben Wallace: What his most recent assessment is of the state of relations between the UK and Iran.

Michael Fabricant: What his most recent assessment is of the state of relations between the UK and Iran.

David Miliband: I am glad that the hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Wallace) is learning the art of asking questions. We will give him a lot of practice for many years to come, I think.
	Iran continues to refuse to engage in a constructive manner with the international community. We have been ceaseless in seeking better relations with Iran, and the E3 plus 3 group has made a serious offer for widespread co-operation on the basis of international rules. Despite this, Iran refuses to heed five UN Security Council resolutions, continues to deny its own citizens' human rights, and supports armed groups in the region.

Ben Wallace: Unlike the Foreign Secretary, I do not take six hours to answer the important questions.
	On Saturday, the Chinese effectively kicked into the long grass the effort by the E3 plus 3 to impose a new round of sanctions when they sent a junior delegate to the meeting in the UN. Given that China has faced two ways on arms sales, oil imports and now on sanctions on Iran, is it not about time that the countries that want to try and resolve the issues to do with Iran seek more imaginative options? Will the Secretary of State let the House know what other options he may consider?

David Miliband: I counsel the hon. Gentleman very strongly not to fall for the propaganda that says that the E3 plus 3 has failed to come to a united position; the truth is the opposite. All six countries agreed that now was the time to assess which sanction options were the right ones to implement. It may comfort President Ahmadinejad to dwell on who attended for the Chinese at the meeting on Saturday, but the Chinese commitment and representation was absolutely clear. At no stage was there any suggestion from them that they want either to opt out of the E3 plus 3 unity or to deny the progress that needs to be made. Iran is isolated on this issue, not China or the United Kingdom, and we should stick to that position.

Michael Fabricant: Last month the Iranians successfully test fired a new long-range missile capable of hitting targets in Israel and United States bases in the middle east. That, combined with their nuclear programme, is a very frightening nexus, indeed. Are we not sleepwalking towards a major war in the middle east? What steps can the Government take to avoid that?

David Miliband: It is important that we are clear about the dangers posed by the Iranian's nuclear programme and their other activities in the region. Equally, we must not talk ourselves into-the hon. Gentleman used the word "war", which is a very dangerous word to use, especially in the middle east. It is quite the wrong time to believe that diplomacy cannot resolve the issue. It is clearly in the interests of the Iranian people to seek proper relations on the basis of international rules with the international community, and that is why we are absolutely committed to the diplomatic track and believe that it can work. The truth is that the Iranian people do not have an argument with the rest of us, and we must make sure that we do not start one.

Michael Clapham: Will my right hon. Friend say whether the E3 plus 3 group has discussed the Russian proposal to enrich uranium? Does he think that there is any mileage in it, and is it something that the Iranians may well bend to as negotiations continue?

David Miliband: We certainly have. It is a very important proposal, which former director el-Baradei of the International Atomic Energy Agency tabled, but the Iranians have not given a positive response. Their reply, which is not in writing and, even at that, has not been formally tabled, does not accept the simple point that the IAEA-Russian proposal makes, which is, "The Iranians say that they have only civilian use for the low-enriched uranium; here is a way in which it can be enriched for medical purposes and returned to Iran for those purposes." Nothing would more clearly demonstrate to the wider world that Iran is serious, but it has not taken that opportunity.

Denis MacShane: I hope that my right hon. Friend does not flinch from those criticisms of Britain's involvement in Iran. I would be very proud if the United Kingdom was on the side of the great Persian nation, its culture and the green revolution of young people as they march to overthrow those ayatollahs and their tyrants. Is this not a case whereby so-called soft power has to work? Will he talk to other Departments and other Governments to see what we can do to encourage the people of Iran, like the people of Poland in 1980 and the people of South Africa, to overthrow that tyranny and install democracy?

David Miliband: I think that I am right in saying that on 70 occasions over the past few years the Government have raised human rights issues. Given that the Iranian Government say that they want to give us a slap in the mouth for the vehemence with which we have expressed our opinions, no one can say that the Government have been soft or recalcitrant in putting forward those views.

Viva Palestina Convoy

Paul Rowen: What recent reports he has received on the Viva Palestina convoy to Gaza; and if he will make a statement.

Ivan Lewis: The Government remained in close contact with the convoy organisers and the Egyptian Government. The Government's clear advice is against all travel to Gaza. We set that out to the Viva Palestina convoy organisers, and we provided appropriate consular assistance to all the convoy members who requested it.

Paul Rowen: I thank the Minister for that, but, given that it is now 12 months since the Israelis withdrew from Gaza, what steps are the Government taking to ensure that convoys and aid can reach the stricken people of Palestine?

Ivan Lewis: The Foreign Secretary made it absolutely clear that, at every opportunity, Britain makes it clear that it is Israel's responsibility-and, indeed, Egypt's responsibility-to remove all obstacles to humanitarian assistance. Since the conflict in Gaza, the United Kingdom has made unprecedented resources available in terms of humanitarian assistance and reconstruction through international development assistance and aid. Alongside that, we have made it very clear that we call on Hamas to do everything to stop the rocket attacks that have recently restarted against Israel, and to release Gilad Shalit as a matter of urgency.

David Winnick: In view of the destruction that Gaza suffered last year, and arising from previous answers by the Foreign Secretary, is my hon. Friend aware that it would be wrong and harmful to Britain's reputation if the law here on suspected war criminals were changed in order to protect former Israeli Ministers or, indeed, former Ministers anywhere, and does he agree that the law should remain as it is?

Ivan Lewis: My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has made it very clear that we will uphold our international obligations in terms of those accused of war crimes. However, Israel is an important strategic partner and a close friend of the United Kingdom. If we are to bring peace to the middle east and make a significant contribution to kick-starting the beginning of a political process that will lead to the two-state solution, which all Members of this House fundamentally believe in, it cannot be right that leaders of Israel are unable to enter this country because of what we believe to be an unintended consequence of the universal jurisdiction laws.

Yemen

Joan Humble: What recent steps his Department has taken to seek to resolve the conflict in Yemen; and if he will make a statement.

David Chaytor: What steps the Government are taking to seek to resolve the conflict in Yemen.

Ivan Lewis: The root causes of conflict in Yemen are a lack of governance and of delivery of services by the state. The UK strategy is to tackle these causes in co-operation with the international community. The meeting in London on 27 January is part of that wider strategy, and it will seek to help the international community to co-ordinate both its response to these issues and support for the efforts of the Government of Yemen.

Joan Humble: Given how important next week's meeting will be, can my hon. Friend outline the objectives that he hopes will be met in order to solve not only the problems of Yemen but the problems that Yemen causes for so many other countries?

Ivan Lewis: My hon. Friend asks absolutely the right question. Last year, the United Kingdom signed up to a cross-Government strategy that dealt with the issues of security, more effective governance and economic and social development in Yemen, and those will be the focus of the meeting in London. We want to get the international community to come together and support the Government of Yemen in relation to those challenges. Ultimately, social and economic progress are the best ways of guaranteeing security and stability in Yemen.

David Chaytor: Does my hon. Friend see the problems in Yemen as exactly analogous to those in Afghanistan? If he does, what kind of intervention by the international community is needed?

Ivan Lewis: We do not see the challenges that we face in Yemen and in Afghanistan as being the same. In Yemen, while there is a very fragile state and Government, there is a functioning Government. It is very important that we do everything that we can at this early stage-surely the lesson from Afghanistan and, indeed, from Iraq, is early intervention-to support the Government of Yemen in relation to the economic and social challenges that they face, because, as I said earlier, that will be the ultimate difference that will lead to greater security and stability in Yemen and minimise the threat to the international community.

Topical Questions

Meg Munn: If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

David Miliband: No one in this House can fail to be moved by the plight of the Haitian people today. It is a human tragedy of enormous proportions, with more than 50,000 confirmed dead and 3 million in need of assistance-fully one third of the total population of that country. The UK Government have so far pledged £20 million, and the British public almost the same. UK search and rescue experts are working alongside teams from 27 countries. Yesterday, the EU pledged more than €345 million. An increasing amount of aid is reaching those who need it-a huge task given the extent of the damage to the limited infrastructure of Haiti. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development, the Prime Minister and I are working closely with the UN, whose lead co-ordinating effort is vital, and with key partners-above all, the US and Canada-to ensure that all necessary steps are taken for the effective delivery of aid.

Meg Munn: I declare an interest in relation to a recent visit to Iraq supported by the Kurdistan regional government.
	The forthcoming Iraqi elections are an important step in the development of Iraq, but so is the development of trade links. Will my hon. Friend agree to organise the first UK trade mission to Kurdistan, Iraq's safest and most open region, to support its future development?

Ivan Lewis: I begin by paying tribute to my hon. Friend for her long-standing interest in Kurdistan. Before Christmas I visited Iraq, and I went to Baghdad, Basra and Erbil. There is absolutely no doubt that there is a tremendous appetite for a much closer business and trading relationship and a normalisation of the economic relationship between Kurdistan and the United Kingdom, and I will certainly look into her specific proposal.

Andrew Selous: On 1 December, the Foreign Secretary said that he would follow up the issue of the 8,000 desks provided by the United Nations for schoolchildren in Gaza that cannot be assembled because Israel will not let in the screws and brackets. Could he kindly tell the House what follow-up action he has taken since then?

David Miliband: I cannot, but I will write to the hon. Gentleman as soon as we get an answer. I asked for the issue to be followed up, and I will certainly write to him and place a copy of the letter in the Library.

Stephen Pound: While I am sure you have received a blizzard of congratulations on your birthday today, Mr. Speaker, may I add my voice, particularly as I believe you share this glorious anniversary with three Conservative Members of Parliament and, possibly even more felicitously, with Dolly Parton?May I ask my hon. Friend the Minister for Europe what assessment he has made of the European arrest warrant as a counter-terrorism measure?

Chris Bryant: Happy birthday, Mr. Speaker-I hope that that does not wind you up.
	My hon. Friend makes a serious point about the European arrest warrant, which is one of the most important crime prevention tools that we have in Europe. It proved vital following the 21 July attempted bombings, when we had to secure the arrest of a citizen in Italy. The only sadness is that the Conservative party does not support it.

Desmond Swayne: On 3 January the Prime Minister announced with great fanfare the conference on Yemen, and this afternoon the Minister of State has given its importance further billing. However, we discovered in a written answer yesterday that the conference is likely to last two hours. Has the announcement been over-sexed just a little bit?

David Miliband: My felicitations as well on your birthday, Mr. Speaker. I do not know whether it was the mention of Dolly Parton that excited the hon. Gentleman.
	The meeting on Yemen will bring together 21 countries including the United Kingdom. It will be a serious look at the security, economic and political issues in that country, and I hope that it will also lead to more cohesive international engagement with Yemen. The hon. Gentleman should welcome the meeting, as it will make a useful contribution to a dangerous situation.

Keith Vaz: I declare my interest in respect of Yemen and welcome the conference. However, what is the rationale behind the Department for Transport suspending direct flights between Sana'a and London? Surely this is the time when we should be engaging with the Yemeni Government and people, not isolating them by preventing them from flying direct to London.

Ivan Lewis: I would lead a chorus of "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow", Mr. Speaker, if it would guarantee unanimous support from the Opposition.
	My right hon. Friend raises an important issue, but the first responsibility of any Government is the security of its citizens. The Department for Transport has very good information that suggests that in that context, at the moment it is in the best interests of Yemen and of the UK for those flights to be suspended. However, I want to make it very clear that representatives of the British Government are currently in Yemen supporting the Yemeni Government and advising them about how they can enhance security measures at their airport to ensure that those flights can be resumed in future. Once we have a report back from that visit, we will be able to make decisions.

William Hague: I support what the Foreign Secretary said about the plight of the people of Haiti and the efforts made to alleviate it.
	Does the Foreign Secretary share our concern about recent developments in Iraq involving the disqualification from the forthcoming elections of large numbers of Sunni candidates on the grounds of their former membership of the Ba'ath party, possibly even including the current Defence Minister, who became a strong opponent of the Saddam regime? Would it not be deeply disturbing and dangerous if Iraq's politics became once again more sharply sectarian? The United States is very active in trying to change that situation. Can the Foreign Secretary say what representations the British Government have made, and what representations they will be making, to the Iraqi Government?

David Miliband: It has been a foundation of UK policy in Iraq over successive years to argue the case that Iraq needs to establish itself as a pluralist democracy in the middle east. It is very important that the sectarian potential of that country does not become the basis on which politics is organised.
	We view with genuine concern any attempt to restrict the candidates in the forthcoming March elections. In that context, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, South (Mr. Lewis), was in Iraq just before Christmas and was able to discuss directly with Prime Minister Maliki the importance of opening up the democratic process. A very large number of candidates are putting themselves forward for election; as far as we are concerned, it should be as large as possible.

Jim Sheridan: Many innocent families were forced off their properties during the 1974 occupation of northern Cyprus. Therefore, does my hon. Friend agree that any peace process must allow those people to go back to their legally owned homes or to get compensation?

Chris Bryant: My hon. Friend is absolutely right that one of the key issues is going to be property. That is why we support a whole-package solution to Cyprus. In the end, the solution must not be dreamed up in Ankara, Athens or London; it must be a resolution of the two sides, which everybody in Cyprus can then vote for. The decision of the Court of Appeal today in the Orams case is going to provoke quite a lot of soul searching over the days to come.

Andrew MacKay: Following the election of the new President in Croatia and the successful resolution of a territorial dispute with Slovenia, will the Foreign Secretary accept that there is no need for any further delay in Croatia becoming a member of the European Union, and will he and his fellow Foreign Ministers use their best offices to ensure that that happens as quickly as possible?

David Miliband: We welcome the election of the new Croatian President, although I hope that on reflection, the right hon. Gentleman will realise that he slightly misspoke. There is a major outstanding issue before membership of the European Union, namely full co-operation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in respect of the situation in the 1990s. I spoke to the Croatian Foreign Minister last week and said that the UK would not block the opening of chapter 23, which is an important chapter in the renegotiations, but I emphasised to him that while we welcome what the Croatian Prime Minister has done in terms of setting up a taskforce to find the important lost documents that are at the heart of ICTY co-operation, it remains the responsibility of the Croatian authorities to pursue this case to the end.
	I hope the right hon. Gentleman recognises that that sort of conditionality is an important part of becoming a functioning member of the European Union. May I make this point, Mr. Speaker, because I think it important? The Croatian Foreign Minister said that he agreed with that approach, because he is helping to drive a process of reform in Croatia so that it can come to terms with its own past. That requires the sort of openness and transparency that is at the heart of the EU accession process.

Mr. Speaker: Order. It goes without saying that all the Foreign Secretary's points are important to the House, but we must try to make a bit of progress.

Rob Marris: The Foreign Secretary today repeated that the UK Government favour sanctions against Iran because that country might be trying to develop nuclear weapons. However, the UK Government do not support sanctions against the state of Israel, which already has nuclear weapons. Will he please explain that contradiction?

David Miliband: I do not think that that is a contradiction because, first of all, we are clear that the possession of nuclear weapons by any state in the middle east is not a contribution towards peace in that region. That is why we have long supported a middle east that is free of nuclear weapons. Secondly, Iran is a signatory to the non-proliferation treaty. I would have liked to see Israel itself sign the NPT a long time ago, but it did not do so. Thirdly, it is very clear in the Arab world that although the Israeli programme may be viewed with disdain, it has not been the basis for mass proliferation in the middle east. The danger of the Iranian programme is that it will be the basis for precisely that sort of proliferation right across the Arab world.

Lembit �pik: The three Baha'is detained in Tehran and the one detained in the town of Semnan turn out to be relatives of the seven Baha'i leaders whose trial commenced on 12 January. Is the Foreign Secretary willing to meet me and a delegation of UK Baha'is to hear our concerns about the arrests and the trial? We also encourage him to seek assurances of fairness and justice from Tehran.

Ivan Lewis: We are very concerned about the situation facing the Baha'i community, and I personally agree with the hon. Gentleman's concerns. I am more than happy to meet him and a delegation as soon as possible.

Jeremy Corbyn: May I take my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary back to the answer that he gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris), which contained a huge non sequitur? If my right hon. Friend is condemning Iran, as I would, for developing nuclear weapons, why cannot he-in the same unequivocal terms-condemn Israel for holding and developing nuclear weapons? There is an obvious danger of proliferation in the region simply because there are nuclear weapons there and, therefore, an implied threat.

David Miliband: We do clearly say that that policy of a middle east free of nuclear weapons is the right vision for the future. Equally, I think that it is right to recognise that the development of the Iranian programme is of concern not just in Israel, but right across the Arab world. Now, it is absolutely clear that if the Iranians do go ahead and develop a nuclear weapons capability, the chances of Israel disarming are zero, and that is why the immediate challenge that we face does relate to the Iranian programme. That is why it is very important to stop the rot in the NPT before it gets any deeper.

Mark Harper: I listened carefully to the Foreign Secretary's answer to the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs. Ellman). He agreed, I think, that leaders of Israel should be able to come to the United Kingdom without fear of arrest. What I did not hear in his answer was the steps that the British Government will take to ensure that that can happen.

David Miliband: The issue arises in respect of an anomaly in English law with respect to the taking out of arrest warrants on the basis of so-called prima facie evidence-a different test than is required for prosecution. So under English law, arrest warrants can be issued even when there is no chance of a prosecution taking place. The Government are looking at ways to remedy that anomaly, but it is important that we do so in a way that preserves our commitments to pursue war crimes and allows private individuals to make representations in such cases. When we have been through all the legal aspects, we will come forward to the House with an answer.

Tom Watson: The Government have sought to reassure concerned Members about the EU negotiations on the free trade treaty with Colombia. That has been reassuring, but will the Minister raise the case of Liliana Obando, a human rights campaigner who, to use the words that the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, South (Mr. Lewis) used earlier, is facing trumped-up charges and a bogus trial for her human rights activities?

Chris Bryant: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this matter. We will indeed do so. The human rights situation in Colombia is a matter of significant concern to us, with the number of trade unionists and others murdered every year. We need to ensure that if we move forward with a trade deal with Colombia and Peru, it contains robust and enforceable human rights clauses.

Norman Baker: Last year, the Government changed their long-standing position on the status of Tibet to recognise Chinese sovereignty, despite the fact that it has no historical basis. The Chinese secured a major diplomatic victory as a consequence, but the Government said at the time that the decision would enable progress in Tibet. Can the Minister point to one single concrete achievement for Tibet that has resulted from that badly judged decision?

Ivan Lewis: I can; I was the first British Minister ever to be allowed to visit Tibet.

Jane Kennedy: Did my right hon. Friend hear the comments by Khalil al-Hayya yesterday in which he roundly rejected the Egyptian proposals for reconciliation on the Egyptian border with Gaza? Does not that clearly indicate the responsibility that Hamas carries for the suffering of its own people?

David Miliband: My right hon. Friend is right that Hamas bears a strong responsibility for seeking reconciliation on a basis that would allow the Palestinian people to find a way to achieve the state that should be their right, but is not yet their reality. Hamas bears a heavy responsibility in that area. Given that the whole Arab world has endorsed the Arab peace initiative, the question is why Hamas has not, and that question needs to be repeated again and again.

Nigel Evans: After the last demonstrations in Iran, hundreds of political prisoners are languishing in jail, some being tortured and 17 facing the death penalty. I do not think that Iran cares a stuff about having good relations with the UK, but can the Foreign Secretary use his influence with the international community to protect the lives of these innocent political prisoners?

David Miliband: It is a tragedy that Amnesty International has said that the human rights situation in Iran is the worst for 20 years. That is a blot on the copybook of a civilised and historic nation that deserves a civilised regime. I believe that it is not in Iran's interest to be isolated, and I do not believe that the hon. Gentleman is quite right to say that Iran does not care at all about its isolation. However, the people on the streets of Iran deserve our admiration for their determination to stand up patriotically for what their revolution was all about-serving the interests of the people in the Islamic republic.

Lindsay Hoyle: Will my right hon. Friend now relinquish his duty of laying a wreath at the cenotaph and ensure that the overseas territories lay their own wreath? That decision has been deferred for a long time. Can it now be taken-yes or no?

Chris Bryant: It has not been possible to secure unanimity on that decision, so we have no plans, I am afraid, to bring it forward this year.

Tobias Ellwood: I welcome the Secretary of State's comments on Haiti, but may I ask whether we are using all our assets? The Type 23 frigate, HMS Iron Duke, is in the Caribbean but not being utilised. Our military stabilisation and security teams, which performed so admirably after the Indonesian earthquake, remain to be dispatched to Haiti. Will he consider those assets?

David Miliband: Unlike the situation in Indonesia, Haiti's Government have been all but eradicated. The Ministry of Defence has certainly looked at the use of all its assets as part of the international effort under UN leadership, and we will continue to consider any way in which we can make a difference in Haiti.

Denis MacShane: The President of the European Union Council, Mr. Van Rompuy, has been in London today. Will the Foreign Secretary inform the House on whether he stopped the traffic?

David Miliband: As it happens, I was not listening to Capital Radio at 8.30 am, when the Council President's motorcade-for I assume that it was a motorcade-went through London. However, I know that he was delighted to meet the Cabinet after his meeting with the Prime Minister this morning, and that he and the Prime Minister set out a very ambitious agenda for European growth and jobs that will support the efforts being made in this country to ensure that the fragile recovery is turned into strong and robust growth.

Philip Davies: Will the Foreign Secretary tell the House how many powers have been handed from the European Union back down to national Parliaments since the principle of subsidiarity was recognised under European Community law by the Maastricht treaty? In the same time, how many powers have gone from national Parliaments up to the EU?

Chris Bryant: One of the most important powers that Parliament now has, following the Lisbon treaty, which the hon. Gentleman opposed, is the power to say no to legislation proposed by the Commission. I would have thought that he would support that-it is one of the reasons why I would have thought that he would support the Lisbon treaty-but if he wants to remain on the extremist wing of Europe, he should feel free to remain there.

Mark Pritchard: Even without the nuclear question, Iran remains a malevolent, oppressive and destabilising influence in Latin America, the horn of Africa, central Europe and Lebanon. What discussions has the Secretary of State had with the Government of India to try to convince Iran to understand the will of the international community?

David Miliband: I was pleased to meet my Indian opposite number at the G8 meeting and then at the Commonwealth conference. It is important to recognise that when the IAEA voted recently on a resolution on the Iranian nuclear programme, India supported the majority position-I think that 22 of the 25 countries supported it. That is an important step forward, and I was pleased that it did so.

Angus MacNeil: With the terrible events in Haiti, and as we look forward to its reconstruction, can the USA's blockade or embargo of Cuba be helpful to regional prosperity, including in Cuba's near neighbour, Haiti, in the years to come?

Chris Bryant: We have long opposed the blockade of Cuba. We think that it is inappropriate and does not encourage Cuba to open its society and economy. We think that it is wholly misguided, as we regularly tell our American counterparts.

Stewart Jackson: Over a number of years the Foreign Office has been complicit with the Government of the Republic of Turkey in denying the Armenian genocide of 1915. In the dying months of this Administration, is the Foreign Secretary happy that this situation should prevail?

David Miliband: My hon. Friend the Minister for Europe has happily deferred to me to answer this question.

Keith Simpson: He doesn't know!

Chris Bryant: I do.

David Miliband: My hon. Friend says that he knows the answer, but he did not spring to his feet. The hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr. Jackson) will know that it has been the long-standing position of the British Government, as articulated both publicly and privately in Turkey, that there should be a proper historical investigation into those events that has the confidence of both sides. However, he should recognise that the recent opening of closer relations between Turkey and Armenia is a significant step forward. As it happens, last Tuesday, when the Turkish Foreign Minister was here, was also the day when those talks took a further step forward beyond so-called football diplomacy and into real diplomacy. That is something that we should welcome and congratulate both sides on.

Mr. Speaker: I am glad that the House is in such an ebullient and, on the whole, good-natured mood. As usual, I have tried to practise the maximum inclusivity and have done my best to be accommodating, but from now, if we are going to get everybody in, we will need pithier questions and pithier answers.

Several hon. Members: rose -

Mr. Speaker: We will shortly move on to the ten-minute rule motion, but I hear a chorus of points of order on its way.

Points of Order

Caroline Spelman: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The Government have released a written ministerial statement on the vexed subject of garden grabbing this afternoon. However, it was clearly briefed to journalists some 24 hours beforehand, as  The Daily  Telegraph reports not only its contents, but the intended actions of the Minister for Housing. The statement was therefore clearly briefed out with his explicit consent. As you have previously advised, Mr. Speaker,
	Ministers ought to make key statements to the House before they are made elsewhere.-[ Official Report, 24 June 2009; Vol. 494, c. 798.]
	Would you agree, therefore, that first sight of that important statement should have been given to the House and that it should have been debated?

Mr. Speaker: I hope that the hon. Lady, and more particularly the House, will understand that, in the course of a busy day thus far, my eye has not chanced on the particular article to which she refers. I think that it would be prudent for me, and fair also to the Minister to whom she refers, first to make inquiries and try to check the position and ascertain the vantage point of the Minister before reaching a definitive view. What I can say, however, is twofold. First, I am grateful to the hon. Lady for highlighting the matter. It is in the public interest that she has done so. Secondly, I think that she knows-and the Ministers on the Treasury Bench are also aware-that I strongly deprecate the practice of leaking when it takes place. It is very important to establish the facts in this case, but important statements must be made first to the House. They should not be given to the media, either through direct speech or through briefing by others on Ministers' behalf. I hope very much that that has not happened in this case, but I will look into the matter and revert to the hon. Lady.

Tom Harris: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I seek your guidance on the matter of a £21,000 donation that was made to the office of the shadow Health Secretary on 17 November by a Mrs. John Nash, the wife of the chairman of a private health care company. Was it in order for the hon. Gentleman to lead the Conservative party in the health debate on the Queen's Speech two days later, on 19 November, when he had not registered that interest?

Mr. Speaker: The registration of interests is a matter for Members to undertake, and there are rules within which they must operate. If I were a cynical or suspicious soul, I might suppose for one moment that the hon. Gentleman was seeking to inveigle me into a political debate or argument; but as I am a charitable character, I must assume that that is not his intention.

Peter Bone: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. For clarification for Members, if donations-for instance, to the Health Secretary, whose office I have notified that I would be raising this point of order-are properly declared, they do not influence policy, so where is the problem in what is being brought up?

Mr. Speaker: I have already ruled on the matter. Just as I was charitable enough to conclude that the hon. Member for Glasgow, South (Mr. Harris), from the Government Back Benches, was not seeking to inveigle me into an argument, I feel sure that, notwithstanding any appearance to the contrary, the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Bone) is not seeking to persist, or to encourage me to persist, with any such argument. That would be very wrong, and the hon. Gentleman would not invite me to do anything that was very wrong.

Tony Wright: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I think that the House will have been expecting a statement on Cadbury today. It cannot be right that a successful, progressive, iconic British company can be taken over by a foreign predator for short-term gains, with huge potential long-term dangers. Will you make inquiries as to whether a Minister will come to the House and make a statement?

Mr. Speaker: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. A decision on whether to volunteer a statement is, of course, a matter for the Government. Ministers on the Treasury Bench, and their colleagues in the relevant Department, will have heard the point of order. I think that it is fair to say that Members who have an interest in the matter will be looking for, and are almost certainly already exploring, other means by which the matter can be highlighted in the Chamber or Westminster Hall. However, I note what the hon. Gentleman has said, and hope that Ministers will have noted it. I feel sure that we have not yet heard the end of the matter.

Norman Baker: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Shortly after your election, I suggested to you that it would be a useful democratic innovation if those Cabinet Ministers based in the House of Lords were able to come to the Commons to answer departmental questions-a point to which you responded in a positive manner. I appreciate that those Cabinet Ministers now respond in the Lords, but that does not quite meet my concerns. Can you update the House on the latest position on that matter?

Mr. Speaker: As the House will know, the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) is usually conversant with what is going on and takes a keen interest in all such matters. He will, I am sure, be aware that there have been ongoing discussions on the subject. It is no secret that I have commented on the issue, underlining the importance of Lords Ministers' accountability to the House. Indeed, I have done so recently in a number of speeches and interviews.
	I should say to the hon. Gentleman, in case he is not aware of it, that I have asked the Procedure Committee to look at the matter, and have encouraged it to do so with some dispatch, as, frankly, this is not a matter of any complexity. It does not require the garnering of large quantities of written or spoken evidence. What is sought is the expression of an opinion and the reaching of a judgment. Certainly, I am keen that we should not delay reaching a satisfactory conclusion on this important matter. I call Dr. Bob Spink.

Bob Spink: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I am most obliged. Have you had notice that a Minister will make an early statement to the House about today's Court of Appeal judgment in favour of Meletios Apostolides and against Orams, which establishes enforceable property rights for Cypriot refugees? We should have such a statement so that no more British people make the expensive mistake of buying occupied Cypriot property from the Turkish occupiers-property that must be returned to the rightful owners without compensation.

Mr. Speaker: What the hon. Gentleman has raised is, I am sure, a matter of great interest, and possibly also of considerable complexity. I have to admit that it is a matter on which my ignorance is unequalled by any other Member of the House. What is more, it is not obvious to me, as of this moment, that it constitutes a point of order, but the Minister for Europe is stirring from his seat, and I feel sure that we will hear his words of wisdom.

Chris Bryant: Well, I do know slightly more about this subject that you do, Mr. Speaker, so might I help? The judgment was given only this morning; we hope to update the House as soon as possible.

Mr. Speaker: Well, we seem to have exhausted points of order. We are all very grateful for that, and none more so than the person responsible for the ten-minute Bill, Mr. Frank Doran.

Health and Safety (Company Director Liability)

Motion for leave to  bring in  a Bill (Standing Order No. 23)

Frank Doran: I beg to move,
	That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 in respect of the liability of company directors; and for connected purposes.
	Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was beginning to think that someone was trying to talk the Bill out. Over the past 12 years, we have made substantial progress on health and safety at work issues. I am particularly pleased and proud that this Government passed the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007, but that Act did not address all outstanding issues, and there are still gaps. My Bill is intended to fill one of the more significant ones, relating to the responsibility of company directors under the current legislation.
	Under the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974, primary duties are placed on an employer. Where that employer is a company, the duties are placed on the company as a separate legal entity, and not on the directors or shareholders. There are some areas in which it could be argued that there is some responsibility on directors. Section 7 of the Act, for example, places duties on all employees in respect of their own safety or that of others. However, that seems to operate only when an individual is acting as an employee, and not as an officer of the company, which is what a director is.
	Section 37 of the Act imposes specific duties on directors. Subsection (1) states:
	It is a primary duty of a director of a body corporate to take all reasonable steps to ensure that the body corporate acts in accordance with the obligations imposed on it by any regulations, orders or other instruments of legislative character relating to health and safety. Any director failing to carry out this duty shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable to be proceeded against and punished accordingly.
	There have been prosecutions under this section, but only a handful each year compared with the number of industrial accidents.
	The problem with section 37 is that, before there can be a successful prosecution, the prosecutors are required to prove that a company director was aware, or should have been aware, that an offence had been committed. There is no obligation on any company director to take action to inform themselves of any offences being committed by the company or to take steps to prevent offences from being committed.
	The duties imposed under the 1974 Act on employers across the board, including companies, are positive. In general, those duties require the good management and common sense that a sensible employer would employ anyway-namely, the need to look at and assess risks associated with any task, and to take sensible measures to tackle them.
	This general duty is in stark contrast to the position of directors of a company. The legislation imposes no positive obligations on directors. The responsibilities placed on directors by section 37 have been very narrowly interpreted by the courts. Companies that decide not to place specific safety responsibilities on directors, or that can draft requirements in such a way that they can be easily complied with, can therefore avoid prosecution without too much difficulty. The approach in section 37 in respect of company directors is totally contrary to the whole ethos and philosophy of the rest of the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act, which encourages good practice.
	The Health and Safety Executive attempted to correct this anomaly in 2001 by introducing a voluntary code of guidance. Among other provisions, the code provides that
	each member of the Board needs to accept their individual role in providing health and safety leadership for their organisation,
	and
	recommends that Boards appoint one of their number to be the Health and Safety Director.
	Despite the enthusiastic reception of the code by business organisations, the majority of companies have not implemented its recommendations. In 2007, the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians commissioned a study of the role of directors in health and safety. The report, Bringing Justice To the Boardroom, is an excellent and important piece of work, and the union is to be congratulated on commissioning it. I have leaned on it heavily in my own research.
	One of the report's most significant findings, based on HSE data, is that only 44 per cent. of organisations have a health and safety director at board level. That is obviously disappointing because, again using HSE data, the report shows consistently positive effects from attaching direct responsibility for health and safety to a named director.
	The report contains a list of organisations that complied with the guidelines. Those organisations showed reduced accident rates ranging from a 4.3 per cent. reduction in the one year at Neales Waste, through to a 100 per cent. decrease in recordable incidents-down from a seven-year average of nine to zero in 2004-at Esso's Fawley refinery. Other well-known business names showed equally impressive reductions. Debenhams reported a 20 per cent. reduction in accidents in a one-year period, and Sainsbury's showed a 28 per cent. reduction in reportable incidents over three years. British Sugar had a 43 per cent. reduction in lost-time injuries over two years, and Zurich Insurance-we always like to see the insurance industry doing well in this area-reported a 46 per cent. reduction in its accident rate over two years.
	The payback on health and safety investment is not just about reduced accident rates. Such investment improves efficiency and staff morale, reduces costs and increases profitability, but, despite the best efforts of the HSE, the support of employer organisations, and these results, the UCATT report shows that only 44 per cent. of organisations have adopted the voluntary code.
	The voluntary approach is not working, so more encouragement is needed to persuade employers to take health and safety much more seriously. Further research commissioned by the HSE shows how important legal regulation is in comparison with the voluntary approach. Following a critical report by the Work and Pensions Committee in 2004, the HSE commissioned a report from Professor Philip James. After a review of the evidence, he found that
	this evidence does indicate that statutory requirements are a major and perhaps the main driver of director behaviour with regard to the issue of health and safety at work. It also indicates that directors are influenced by potential personal legal liabilities, even when the likelihood of their being penalised is low-a point which further suggests that the presence of such liabilities can have a positive impact.
	That is direct and to the point. Further HSE research shows that 61 per cent. of directors or managers agree or strongly agree that individuals' belief that they could possibly be imprisoned constitutes an essential or important argument for enforcement to have the deterrent effect, while 52 per cent. cite individual legal consequences as essential or important.
	Despite consistent improvement in the years since the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974 was introduced, the number of deaths, serious injury and illness recorded in the workplace is still far too high. In 2008-09, 180 workers were killed at work, 131,895 suffered serious injury, a further 246,000 suffered reportable injuries and 551,000 new cases of illness caused at work were recorded. The numbers of death, injury and illness are high, but the number of prosecutions is low. The HSE prosecution database indicates that, on average, only seven directors or senior managers have been convicted of health and safety offences in each of the five years up to 2007. Over the five-year period in which around 350 construction workers died and 9,000 suffered major injuries, only 13 construction company directors were convicted for a health and safety offence.
	All of the evidence points very clearly to the fact that the voluntary approach is not working. We desperately need another approach-one that will bring the responsibilities of company directors into line with all other employers under our health and safety legislation, and one that will be of benefit not just to the work force but, as the HSE's own research shows, to employers as well.
	My Bill will place a positive duty on all company directors to take all reasonable steps to ensure health and safety in all aspects of the company's activities-effectively to put them in the same position as all other employers and to remove a glaring anomaly in our health and safety laws. The evidence clearly shows that this will save the lives and livelihoods of people across the UK. I commend the Bill to the House.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Ordered,
	That Mr. Frank Doran, Tony Lloyd, Mr. Stephen Hepburn, Rob Marris, Jim Sheridan, Mr. Ian Davidson, Judy Mallaber, Natascha Engel, Miss Anne Begg and Mr. Lindsay Hoyle present the Bill.
	Mr. Frank Doran accordingly presented the Bill.
	 Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 23 April, and to be printed (Bill 51).

Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill (Programme) (No. 3)

Michael Wills: I beg to move,
	That-
	(1) the Order of 3 November 2009 in the last Session of Parliament (Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill (Programme) (No. 2)) be varied as follows: in the Table, for the entry relating to the third and fourth days of Committee there shall be substituted:
	
		
			  Table 
			  Third day 
			  Proceedings  Time for conclusion of proceedings 
			 Clauses 24 to 28, new Clauses relating to Part 2, new Schedules relating to Part 2, Clause 35, Schedule 5, new Clauses relating to Part 4, new Schedules relating to Part 4, new Clauses relating to the effect of section 18(7) of the Electoral Administration Act 2006. The moment of interruption on the third day. 
			  Fourth day 
			  Proceedings  Time for conclusion of proceedings 
			 Clauses 29 and 30, Schedule 4, Clauses 31 to 34, new Clauses relating to Part 3, new Schedules relating to Part 3, remaining new Clauses, remaining new Schedules, Clauses 59 to 62, remaining proceedings on the Bill. The moment of interruption on the fourth day. 
		
	
	(2) notwithstanding paragraphs 3 and 4 of that Order, if the proceedings shown for the third day in the first column of the Table above are concluded before the moment of interruption on the third day, the proceedings shown for the fourth day may be taken on the third day.
	As Members know, three substantive parts of the published Bill remain to be debated: part 2 on the ratification of treaties; part 3 on the House of Lords; and part 4 on protests around Parliament. As such, I believe it to be appropriate that we today consider parts 2 and 4, along with a Government amendment relating to the effect of section 18(7) of the Electoral Administration Act 2006 on the right of Commonwealth and Irish citizens to be Members of the House of Lords and holders of other offices. That would leave the remaining day of Committee free to consider part 3 of the Bill on the House of Lords, along with any remaining proceedings.
	I am aware that some Members are concerned about the amount of time allocated to the Bill, should the Government bring forward any additional amendments. In relation, for example, to the report by Sir Christopher Kelly's committee, my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the House said at business questions last week that we are considering how much time would need to be given to the Bill in the light of any amendments to implement the Kelly report, and that remains the position.

John Redwood: Why does the Minister not do what always used to be done in this place: let us debate things for as long as they take? As this is a constitutional matter of some importance, what is the difficulty in doing that?

Michael Wills: The right hon. Gentleman has been a Member for such a long time that I am sure he knows the answer to that question. He should not waste the House's time by asking questions to which he already knows the answer.
	I believe that the amended programme motion provides the right amount of time-an adequate amount of time-on the Floor of the House for the Bill as it currently stands, and I hope that Members will support it. I also hope the House will accept my commitment that the Government will look again at the allocation of time if there are any further amendments.

Several hon. Members: rose-

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I apologise to the Members who are hoping to intervene, but the Minister has concluded his speech.

Dominic Grieve: I am sorry to disappoint the Minister, but I will not agree to this programme motion, which represents a fairly pathetic performance by the Government in relation to how they treat the House. This is a constitutional Bill, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) is absolutely right that, historically, there would have been open-ended discussion of such Bills on the Floor of the House.
	We do not like internal knives, as the Minister knows, and the one merit of the second group of two days for consideration of this Bill was that there were to be no internal knives so that the House could debate the matter at its leisure, and if it were to have become clear that there was insufficient time for everything to be considered, I would, doubtless, have approached the Minister, through the usual channels, to ask him kindly to make more time available. On that basis, there is no rational reason for the internal knives now to be inserted.
	Moreover, as the Minister has candidly admitted-I am grateful to him for that-the fact of the matter is that this Bill is far from finished. We do not know what will be in about 50 per cent. of it, although we have had some hints. It will be a very important measure, and careful debate will be required on the recommendations of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority and how Parliament wishes to implement Sir Christopher Kelly's report. We have also been told that there will be a debate and opportunity to vote on an alternative voting system. Things could not be much more constitutional than that, but all these matters are deferred into the future, and we have no idea how much time will be allocated for us to consider them, or, indeed, how much time the House will then get on Report-I think the Minister would acknowledge that we will have to have a Report stage because the Government have amended their own legislation.

William Cash: In the context of the Report stage and IPSA, does my hon. and learned Friend agree with the suggestion that has been made that IPSA might be called upon under this Bill to consider the salaries and pensions of Members of Parliament, which would, of course, require a very considerable amount of discussion?

Dominic Grieve: My hon. Friend is correct: there has been talk of that. However, I am not aware of that possibility having been included in any current amendments.
	There have been many rumours about how we are to tackle the setting up of IPSA. Indeed, as the Government know, we are sympathetic to and wish to be supportive of most of the measures that it will introduce, although there may be some that, being outside Sir Christopher Kelly's remit, stimulate more debate. Of course I also have to accept that this is a matter on which Members of this House will wish to express their own views, free from interference from any Front-Bench team, because they have a right to do so. For all those reasons, the Conservatives are very unhappy about the way in which this is all meandering.
	May I make a final point to the Minister that I do not believe to be uncalled for? The length of time that this Parliament still has to run is rather short, so it cannot be outside the Minister's mind that unless there is a degree of consensus on these matters, there must be a danger that a piece of legislation that I assume has the Government's support, that in many respects has the Opposition's support and that I believe has the Liberal Democrats' support-there is support from all parts of the House-could get into difficulty with time if the Government do not have a proper timetable. As we also know from experience, badly scrutinised legislation that is passed in haste, for whatever reason, including because the Parliament is running out of time, is likely to cause nothing but trouble later on.
	For all those reasons, it seems to us that the Government are moving in the wrong direction. I strongly urge the Minister to leave the timetable as it is and to work hard in the next 24 hours-or at least in the next week-to tell the House what the Government are going to do in terms of the further amendments that will be tabled, so that this debate can have some structure and we can have a reasonable certainty of concluding it. For all those reasons, the Minister leaves me thoroughly unpersuaded as to any valid argument for introducing internal knives at this stage of the debate. I urge him to allow the House to proceed with this debate in the usual fashion, so that the arguments may be put forward and the House does not feel that it is being hurried along for absolutely no reason.

Jeremy Corbyn: I was hoping to intervene on the Minister, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but he was so quick in trying to get away from the Dispatch Box that I am now forced to make a speech.
	The issue of timetable motions is not new to controversy, but there has always been a tradition that anything that can be deemed a constitutional Bill is not timetabled. The tradition dates back a long way and there is an important point to it. Be that as it may, we have a programme motion before us that is, as ever, extremely unsatisfactory. It simply says that by the moment of interruption we will conclude business on a large number of amendments. By my estimate, at least four major subjects ought to be debated today and it is quite possible that three of them will not be debated at all, because we will simply spend the next six hours or so debating the first major group of amendments on treaties and will not get to debate elections or the Lords-we may not even get to debate demonstrations in Parliament square.

Kelvin Hopkins: I hope my hon. Friend will agree that it should be an advantage to have the Committee stage on the Floor of the House, rather than in Committee, yet we are at a disadvantage because of the limitation of time.

Jeremy Corbyn: My hon. Friend makes a valid point. The advantage of holding the Committee stage on the Floor of the House is that everyone should be able to contribute, but the reality is that hardly anyone will be able to contribute and, as I said, that very large areas of this Bill will probably not be debated at all. We go on with the business of the House by tabling increasingly tough programme motions on very long and complex Bills, to which a large number of amendments are introduced at late stages. That means that they are never examined by the elected Members of the Houses of Parliament. There is something deeply unsatisfactory about such an arrangement in any kind of democratic society. This issue has been raised before and it will doubtless be raised again. One would have hoped that in this era of an examination of the role of Parliament, and of its ability to hold the Executive to account and to introduce good legislation, the least we could do is give ourselves sufficient time to examine the details of a very important and serious piece of legislation properly. I appeal to the Minister to think again about this programme motion and at the very least guarantee sufficient time on each of the four major areas of debate that we are to discuss today.

William Cash: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, in this context, even the Wright Committee proposals appear to be being stalled? Does he agree that we need a radical reform programme and that the evidence that the Government are not interested in that is the way in which they are behaving with this Bill?

Jeremy Corbyn: I await with interest the proposals of the Wright Committee and I look forward to their being properly debated on the Floor of the House. The whole point that the Committee was trying to make was that Parliament has to bring itself into popular repute rather than bringing itself further into disrepute through such a cavalier approach to major pieces of legislation. In that sense, I agree with the hon. Gentleman's point and I hope that the Minister will understand that if we continue to get wrong the primary role of Parliament, which is to examine legislation and to hold Ministers to account, and that if we do not do that effectively, we will increasingly look irrelevant in a democratic society. That is quite an important issue and I hope that the Minister will treat it accordingly.

David Heath: The Government never cease to disappoint in the way they approach parliamentary business. They never cease to let down those who hoped they would increase the accountability of the Executive to this House, as they said they would. They never cease to disappoint those who hope that eventually we will have proper debate of serious issues. They never cease to provide evidence, as the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) says, of the incapacity of the present system to allow this House to do its work properly and of the need for fundamental reform of the procedures of this House, of which the Wright Committee is but the very first step-yet we are denied the opportunity to debate it.
	First, as the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) and the hon. Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn) have said, this is a constitutional Bill and there used to be a certain way we approached constitutional Bills. They were debated in a Committee of the whole House so that every Member of the House had the opportunity to have their say. The debate would be open-ended, again so that every Member who felt there was a proper point they wanted to raise on behalf of their constituents had the opportunity to do so. Today, the Minister is coming forward yet again with a programme motion and with internal knives to prevent and close down debate. That is simply not the way to do it.

William Cash: I very much agree with what the hon. Gentleman is saying. When we talk about constitutional Bills, we are talking about who governs this country. It is this Parliament that is the forum in which that government takes place, and so it is essential to stick to the principle that we should give such Bills maximum time; otherwise, we are simply legislating in a vacuum and on a basis that does not allow people to decide whether they are being governed properly.

David Heath: Precisely so. Instead of that, we have the assertion by the Minister that this timetable will allow sufficient time for matters to be debated. There is no evidence for that; he has simply decided and asserted that there is sufficient time. If he were right, the perverse thing is that there would be no need for the timetable motion. If he were right, we would conclude our business within the two days provided and there would be no need for the provisions that he is proposing in order to curtail debate.

Michael Wills: rose-

David Heath: The Minister now wants to tell us why he is not right.

Michael Wills: I want to be clear about the hon. Gentleman's position. The logical conclusion that we can draw from what he is saying is that every Member of this House will speak succinctly and pithily, make the points that he has to make in the minimum amount of time and then sit down. Is that what he is saying?

David Heath: I am saying that every Member of this House has the right to express their opinion before this House in whatever way they feel is appropriate and to be listened to. The Government are asserting that Members do not have that right and that is where the difference lies between me and the right hon. Gentleman. Our position on this point is very important. So for the first reason-that this is a constitutional Bill, and precedent shows that it should not be divided as the Government propose-I will oppose the timetable motion.
	Secondly, as the hon. Member for Islington, North said, there is a great deal of important business on the Order Paper today, and I fear that we will not reach some of it. It would be scandalous if provisions in such a Bill were passed to an unelected House without consideration by the elected House. Were that to be the case, noble Lords in another place would have every right not to make any attempt to expedite that business before Dissolution.

Douglas Hogg: Of course, the hon. Gentleman would want to make the point that many of the new clauses relate directly to this Chamber, and it would be bizarre indeed if this Chamber did not discuss those matters, whereas the other place did.

David Heath: That is absolutely right.

Dominic Grieve: Equally, there are some clauses that relate very much to the other place, which is why I raised with the Government my concern that this Parliament is running out of time for the proper scrutiny of such an important piece of constitutional legislation. It is time that the Government made the time available-the hon. Gentleman may agree with me-and provided some finality as to what we will be asked to consider.

David Heath: I entirely agree. I fear that the point may already have been reached where the chances of significant parts of the Bill reaching the statute book are fast diminishing.
	There is a very large amount of business to be transacted today and on the second day, although there is a small blurring at the edges. The last paragraph of the programme motion allows us, through the munificence of the Government, to proceed with the fourth day's business early, should we finish today's business early. But that is not the problem. The problem is the other way round-if we do not finish the business that is set down for debate today, we cannot proceed with it on another day. It will go through on the nod, undebated. That is what I find unacceptable.

Robert Smith: Is it not important also that a Government in their dying days, who have lost the trust of the people and who have been seen to allow Parliament to lose its ability to scrutinise the Government, could do something to redeem themselves by at least allowing this Bill to be properly scrutinised?

David Heath: I fear that the Government are irredeemable. I fear that they have gone past the point where they can ever lay claim to having a proper regard for the proprieties of the House and the way that it does its business. The Government prove that fact every day that we do business.
	My third reason for opposing the programme motion is that we do not know what may yet be in the Bill-what amendments the Government may table to implement the Kelly proposals at present under discussion. We know that such amendments may be tabled. That will take further time and more days of debate. We need to know that those days will be available.
	The hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) mentioned the small matter of reform of our electoral system-a trifle to be considered in the odd five minutes that may be left at the end of the fourth day of debate. The Government promised that they may bring forward such provisions. That is the sort of promise that we get from the Government-that they may, or they may not. Perhaps the Minister will enlighten the House whether they propose to table amendments on that matter, when we might expect to see them and, more importantly, when we might expect to debate them.
	I would expect a programme motion tabled today to have incorporated the Government's intentions, and discussions to have taken place with the Leader of the House. As the Minister correctly said, the Leader of the House intimated on Thursday that more days might be made available. I would expect to know, as we enter the third day in Committee, whether there will be one, two or three more days in Committee or as many days as are required to transact the business that the Government are putting before the House. For all those reasons, I will advise my right hon. and hon. Friends to oppose the programme motion.

John Redwood: The Minister is quite shameless. I think he forgets that the Bill arises out of a piece of work called The Governance of Britain Green Paper and the subsequent White Paper. The Bill is meant to be an important part of the response to that work. One of the main points in that work was to have a new constitutional settlement that
	entrusts Parliament and the people with more power.
	The Government said that they were going to reinvigorate our democracy, increase participation and review the right to protest. They said that they wanted to make people and their representatives feel that they were more involved in the process of government than they had been allowed to be in recent years under this miserable Administration.
	With no hint of irony-I do not think he has that advanced a sense of humour-the Minister comes to us today and presumes to say how much time each clause or amendment will receive. This is a most important Bill, with many issues that right hon. and hon. Gentlemen and Ladies may wish to discuss, but the Minister is apparently all wise and all knowing. If we were to say that the Bill needed less or more time, he would claim either that we were being not thorough enough in the first instance or too loquacious in the second, and presume to mark us down accordingly.
	Can the Minister not see that his approach is deeply offensive to the very principles of parliamentary Government? Can he not see that Parliament is adult enough to be able to decide how to distribute its words and actions over the quite long period of time that the Government have allowed for discussion of the Bill as a whole?
	We are making a very simple point: it is that we, Parliament, should for once be able to decide how much of the time that the Minister has allotted to the Bill overall should be spent on x or y. What is the problem for the Government, other than possible embarrassment because they do not want us to go on too long talking about a subject that they are not very strong on or are a bit worried about?
	However, I also wish to query the total amount of time being allowed. Any Government with a majority of course have a right to get their legislation.

Richard Shepherd: No they do not!

John Redwood: No one denies that-

Richard Shepherd: I do!

John Redwood: If a Government have enough votes, and if it is the will of the large majority in the House, they should have the right to get their legislation. I am sure that my hon. Friend agrees with me really, but a Government should have to work for that right. They should not squash the minority too soon, too obviously, or in too peremptory a fashion. They should hear the minority out at decent length, answer the arguments and make their case.

Douglas Hogg: Does my right hon. Friend accept that one of the most disagreeable features of the argument that we have just heard from the junior Minister came when he said that he did not want to let people speak, lest they speak too long?

John Redwood: Indeed. Who is the Minister to presume how long I or anyone else should speak?

Michael Wills: With all respect to the right hon. Gentleman, he really ought to listen to what I said. That is not what I said. I ask him to look at  Hansard tomorrow to see what I actually said, instead of misrepresenting me in that way.

John Redwood: For the sake of the  Hansard record, the Minister was referring to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg), and not to me. However, he forgot to mention the and learned, and the  Hansard writer could not see that he was looking at my right hon. and learned Friend rather than at me when he intervened on me. I am afraid that he has been discourteous to the House yet again in the way that he responded and used the intervention- [ Interruption. ] I am sorry, but I feel very strongly about this. The Minister is very discourteous to the House in not giving it the time it needs.

Michael Wills: I would like to stand up and apologise to the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood). I do apologise. I understand that there may have been a misconception that I was referring to him and not to the right hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg). I do apologise to the House, and wish to make it quite clear that I did not intend to be discourteous to the right hon. Gentleman. I hope that he understands that now.

John Redwood: I think I said that the Minister was being discourteous to the House. I still believe that he is being discourteous to the House in the way he is handling this short debate and, more importantly, the bigger issue.
	I come back to the question of the overall timetable. If it turns out that the House needs more time overall to discuss this matter-and we do not know whether it will or will not-why can the Minister not grant it to us? We can go on after 10 o'clock tonight. What is the problem? Right hon. and hon. Members are not going to find it easy to get home after 10 o'clock anyway, so why can those who need to do so not stay on till midnight or 1 o'clock in the morning or whatever to see the business done?
	I am not even saying that the Minister needs to delay the Bill's final exit from this place by another day or two. I am saying that he needs to give us more time, if that is what the House needs. If by any chance the House has finished this chunk of business by 9 o'clock in the evening, then he is very lucky and will have an early night. However, he should be prepared to put in the hours if he is going to take the salary. He should be prepared to put in the hours when an angry House is saying, He is short-changing us. This is a constitutional Bill. These are important matters. We want our democracy back!

Richard Shepherd: I understood, from the Minister's intervention on the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath), that there was a sense of incredulity in the right hon. Gentleman's inquiry. The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome had put forward the simple proposition that a constitutional Bill that is taken on the Floor of the House gives every Member an opportunity to speak, because this is, after all, the constitution of the United Kingdom that we are talking about. That sense of incredulity is what informs my response and, I think, those of my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg), who are sitting on this Bench.
	It is intolerable that a Minister, in a Government sinking so rapidly, should still assert that they are on the side of Parliament as they tighten the noose around Parliament's neck. It is hubris that brings forward a guillotine motion of this nature. We know that much of the Bill will not be discussed. This is a busted Parliament, and one reason is that the Executive have hollowed out from our responsibilities the very function of this House, which is to debate important matters-treaties, whatever they are-in this constitutional Bill. The very logic of the Minister's argument was to say quite simply, We've determined what is necessary and appropriate for this House to debate.
	Many Members will enter the Chamber for specific aspects of the debate, not necessarily for the whole of it. The programme motion takes no account of that, so why does the Bill have in its title the very word governance-the Governance Bill? The Governance of what? We have become nothing. I see tumbleweed blowing down this Chamber and out in Central Lobby. That is what the Government have reduced Parliament to. Do not think that it is not an Executive function- [ Interruption. ] However sweet the smile on the face, Ministers sit in arrogance, essentially, and the outcome is the same: Thou shalt not speak unless we allow you to. Every guillotine motion that comes before the House is almost tailor-made-bespoke-and that is what we have again today.
	The Minister accepts, if I understood his expressions correctly, that we may not reach some contentions in the Bill, and that they will not be debated. That seems to be an extraordinary proposition with which to begin a constitutional Bill, but that has been the difficulty with this Government since they came into office. They cannot discern the difference between the types of Bills, how they are born and how they should be considered. They have seized the Standing Orders of this House, and only the Minister may initiate debates and determine how they are conducted.
	We will have a Division on this issue; the Government will march into the Lobby; and their own Back Benchers, who have not even been present for the debate, will be summoned by bells. But the bells are execution bells in the end. We are close to a general election, and the process of this Parliament is intolerable. Why should intelligent people come here to be neutered and held down? The Government do not even want to hear the expression of opinion on their own Back Benches, unless it is merely in support of themselves, so I shall willingly vote against this outrageous motion.

William Cash: I am very glad to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd), my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) and the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath); and I agree with them. To follow up my right hon. Friend's reference to the Green Paper, in a nutshell, we are now faced not with democracy, but with hypocrisy. The Government have made a series of statements, and I am amazed that the Minister can sit on the Front Bench, scribbling on his bits of paper, when he is responsible for the situation. It is a wanton act of hypocrisy to say something in a Green Paper and, subsequently, to demonstrate, in a constitutional Bill that should be taken on the Floor of the House in proper time, a denial of the very propositions that led to the Bill in the first place.
	My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg) also made some very important points. I recall his father saying, many years ago, that we were moving towards an elective dictatorship. We are not: now we actually have an elected disgrace. That is the problem with which we are faced. In an intervention I referred to the Wright Committee and the fact that nothing has been done about it, despite the fact that action is well overdue. If the business committee that the Wright Committee proposed were to be implemented, this situation could not occur, because the House would insist on proper consideration of the matters that we are about to discuss.
	I very much agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills-he should be right honourable-regarding Standing Orders, on which I have spoken many times. In the early part of the last century, and before then, there was a great deal of discussion about whether Standing Orders should have been taken over by the Executive. That happened in the difficult days of the Irish troubles of the 1880s, when the Speaker's rules were taken over by the Executive with the agreement of those on the two Front Benches, and they have remained with them ever since.
	I conclude by reference to a very important essay written by a former Clerk of this House-Sir Edward Fellowes-which was mentioned in Crick's analysis of the constitution. Crick said that at that moment, when the Executive took over the Standing Orders, this House went into decline, and that not until they are returned to the House of Commons will it be possible for it to regain its former sovereignty-a matter that no doubt we shall be discussing very shortly.

Mike Hancock: I think that the saddest thing about this short debate is the rather pathetic excuses that the Minister put forward for the internal knives in the guillotine to be implemented. There was no real substance to what he said, and no real justification for denying this House the ability to discuss some very important issues.
	The Minister suggested to my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) that if my hon. Friend could give an undertaking that Members would make brief and succinct speeches, then he, the Minister, might give the matter further consideration. It is an outrage for the Minister to suggest that he could decide these matters on the basis of the length and substance of Members' speeches. For Ministers to believe, with such arrogance, that they have that ability is an obscenity in itself, and to suggest that they can treat this House and its Members with that sort of contempt is beyond belief.
	I urge Ministers to consider their position. On the fourth day, they will have an opportunity to extend the time available. There should not be a cut-off today because, as many right hon. and hon. Members have said, it is clear that a lot of the business before the House, which will be guillotined at the end of today's business, will not be properly discussed. How can we discuss the Wright report? We get it wrong by not even discussing it-that is nonsense.

Jeremy Corbyn: It has a good name.

Mike Hancock: Yes, it has, as the right hon. Gentleman says.

Jeremy Corbyn: I am not right honourable.

Mike Hancock: I said the hon. Gentleman.

David Heath: You said right hon. Gentleman.

Mike Hancock: Oh, did I? I stand corrected. Perhaps, like other Members, the hon. Gentleman deserves that title, just for sheer perseverance in this place.
	The Minister should recognise the strength of feeling about this. I am sure that if more of his Back-Bench colleagues were here, they would be echoing the sentiments expressed in all parts of the House. When we are discussing the future governance of this country, we are entitled, at the end of that debate, to be justified in saying that all sides had adequate time to discuss the proposals and to listen to the arguments for and against them. For the Government to hide behind the screen of a gerrymandered guillotine that they have altered during the course of our debates shows that they must be frightened of discussing the substance of the arguments against their case. That is a pitiful state for any Government to be in. Surely, even at this late stage, they can recant and give this House the justice it deserves-a fair hearing on such important issues.

Sammy Wilson: When the Minister was intervened on by the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood), he said that the right hon. Gentleman should know from his long experience in the House why the guillotine had to be used. However, in his short speech, and indeed in his refusal even to spell out his reasons to the right hon. Gentleman, the Minister indicated that there is not a good justification for a guillotine, especially given the nature of the Bill.
	As a Member from Northern Ireland, for a long time before devolution I saw the effects of legislation that went through by Order in Council and was not properly scrutinised, which led to all kinds of problems. We can see the arrangements that we now have in the devolved Assembly in Stormont, which were made in a Bill that had to be pushed through quickly. Some scrutiny may have led to amendments that could have avoided some of the current difficulties with the working of devolved government. It is important that we have proper scrutiny of a Bill that has constitutional importance.
	This process started with high ideals, but before we have even got through the whole parliamentary process those ideals have been torn up. The Green Paper stated that the Government were looking for
	a settlement that entrusts Parliament and the people with more power.
	Yet we cannot even have a proper discussion about some of the issues in the Bill. The proposals in the Green Paper were made under headings with a high-sounding tone, such as Limiting the powers of the executive, Making the executive more accountable and Re-invigorating our democracy. What has all that come down to now that we are actually to debate the proposals? A guillotine that, as Members have indicated, will probably not even allow us to discuss a quarter of what we need to.

John Redwood: Does the hon. Gentleman recall that the current Prime Minister, when newly elevated to that post, made a great point of saying he was going to strengthen Parliament because he believed it had been too weak under the previous Prime Minister, and asked Her Majesty to say that in the Gracious Speech at the start of the 2008-09 Session?

Sammy Wilson: Yes-yet another promise made during the discussions on the Bill has not been fulfilled. Indeed, it is a bit of an irony that we cannot even get a debate when the Green Paper described itself as the
	first step in a national conversation
	about the new arrangements. A national conversation? We cannot even get a proper parliamentary debate.
	One has to ask oneself what the Minister is thinking of in introducing a guillotine of this nature if the Bill is to be the foundation of a constitutional reform. I think of the guillotines that there have been in the House in recent weeks. On the Equality Bill, we did not get through 20 per cent. of the amendments because a guillotine was imposed on the important measures in it. We will see the same thing happen today.

William Cash: Does the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that the Minister, in referring to the requirement to be pithy and in using other such strange, vague expressions, effectively accuses Members of filibustering? The real question is proper debate-

Chris Bryant: Quod erat demonstrandum.

William Cash: The hon. Gentleman quotes a bit of Latin, but I do not think he really understands what he is talking about. He never does.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am sure that the matter the hon. Gentleman raises can be looked after by the Chair perfectly satisfactorily.

Sammy Wilson: It will not just be members of the House who are disappointed by what has happened today. When a Joint Committee scrutinised the Bill, it commended the Government for
	taking these first steps towards its stated objective of making Government more accountable to Parliament.
	Even when the Committee looked at the Bill, it believed it was getting something that we are not getting even in the debating of the Bill. The Committee indicated that
	the Government's approach to constitutional modernisation has been a rebalancing of power.
	Those were the promises that were made and that was what we believed we were getting in the Bill, yet today we see that the end result is that the House has less opportunity for discussion and less say on the great changes that will be required.

Douglas Hogg: Actually, does it not go further than that? Many Members have tabled new clauses that go far outside the scope of the Bill as contemplated by the Government, but are none the less constitutional reforms of a very great kind. Those Members are being denied the opportunity even to ventilate those ideas.

Sammy Wilson: I take the right hon. and learned Gentleman's point. Far worse, of course, is the fact that Members will have little opportunity to debate, or even to prepare arguments against, Government amendments that we do not yet know about. My party will vote against the programme motion, because it does not reflect what the Government promised and it has not been justified in the debate so far. This issue is of such great importance that there ought to be a proper opportunity for debate in the Chamber.

Michael Wills: With permission, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Of course I agree with all the comments that have been made, and of course the House must have adequate time to scrutinise this legislation. However, listening to this debate-an interesting and revealing debate-one would think that the Government were allowing no time at all. I am very grateful to the hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson), who at last mentioned one of the Committee scrutinies of the Bill. I have here the report of the Joint Committee on the Draft Constitutional Renewal Bill. The Bill was published in draft and reported on by that Committee, and it has also been reported on by the Public Administration Committee.

William Cash: Will the Minister give way?

Michael Wills: With great respect, I will not give way, because I want to make a few points while I have still got time, which is limited thanks to the programme motion- [ Laughter. ] I would be grateful if he let me continue.
	The Bill has been scrutinised by the Joint Committee, the PAC and the Justice Committee. I have counted the number of Back Benchers in this House-

William Cash: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Would you be kind enough to rule on whether, in the middle of debate on a constitutional Bill, it is right for a Minister to evoke procedures other than those that take place on the Floor of the House, where the Bill should be properly discussed, but which is blatantly not happening at the moment?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. Gentleman should know that that is not a point of order, but an attempt to further the debate. The Minister is now trying to reply to the very important matters raised by hon. Members in general.

Dominic Grieve: rose-

Michael Wills: If I may, I should like to respond to the previous intervention and to make a few points in response to all the other contributions in the debate-that is parliamentary debate, as I think hon. Members will recognise.
	I can say in response to the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) that the Government published the Bill in draft. I do not remember his party ever doing any such thing when it was in government.

Dominic Grieve: I really cannot resist responding to the Minister's comment on the number of people in the Chamber. When is it going to dawn on him that the reason why the attendance in the Chamber is so low is that the Government, over a long period, have made a complete mockery of the procedures of this House, removing all possibility for debate?

Michael Wills: I just say this to the hon. and learned Gentleman: there are important constitutional points here. Every day-
	 Three quarters of an hour having elapsed since the commencement of proceedings on the motion, the Deputy Speaker put the Question (Standing Order No. 83A (9) ).

The House divided: Ayes 290, Noes 235.

Question accordingly agreed to.

Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill

[Relevant documents:  Report of the Joint Committee on the Draft Constitutional Renewal Bill, Session 2007-08, HC 551-I and-II, and t he Government response, Cm 7690.  Tenth Report from the Public Administration Select Committee, Session 2007-08, on Constitutional Renewal: Draft Bill and White Paper, HC 499, and the Government response, Cm 7688 .  Fourth Report from the Joint Committee on Human Rights, Session 2009-10, on Legislative Scrutiny: Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill; Video Recordings Bill, HC 249. ]
	[3rd Allocated Day]
	 Considered in Committee

[Sir Alan Haselhurst  in the Chair]

Clause 24
	  
	Treaties to be laid before Parliament before ratification

Andrew Dismore: I beg to move amendment 114, page 12, line 38, leave out
	'a copy of the treaty'
	and insert-
	'(i) a copy of the treaty and, at the same time,
	(ii) an explanatory memorandum explaining the background to the treaty, the Minister's reasons for proposing to ratify it, and the reasons for any reservations or interpretative declarations that the Minister intends to enter on ratification,'.
	May I draw Members' attention to the report on the Bill by my Committee, the Joint Committee on Human Rights? It was published yesterday as part of our scrutiny. The Minister of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Mr. Wills), mentioned all the other Committees that have considered the Bill when he spoke on the programme motion, but omitted ours from the list.
	The purpose of the amendment is to give effect to part of our report on scrutiny, and in particular to try to make the scrutiny of treaties rather more effective. The new statutory procedure for the ratification of treaties is based on the Ponsonby rule. The treaty has to be laid before Parliament for a period of 21 sitting days. As a human rights Committee, our Committee has a particular interest in scrutinising international treaties prior to ratification. The problem of a lack of effective parliamentary scrutiny is particularly pressing for human rights treaties, as it is well established that UK courts will have regard to such treaties in a wide range of circumstances, regardless of whether they have been incorporated into UK law.
	If a statute is capable of bearing two interpretations, the courts will presume that Parliament intended to legislate in conformity with the convention, and not in conflict with it. If the common law is uncertain, unclear or incomplete, the courts will rule, wherever possible, in a manner that conforms with the treaty. When the courts are called on to construe a domestic statute enacted to fulfil an obligation under a treaty, the courts will ordinarily assume that the treaty was intended to be effective to that end. Where the courts have a discretion to exercise-where they can act in one way or another-they seek to act in a way that does not violate treaties that we have signed. When, as sometimes happened, the courts are called on to decide what, in a given situation, public policy demands, it is held to be legitimate that we should have regard to our international obligations.

Douglas Hogg: I have a great deal of sympathy with what the hon. Gentleman proposes in his amendment. The one thing that puzzles me is why he has not also suggested that a memorandum should explain the consequences and effects of a treaty, because very often the draft of a treaty is rather opaque and quite difficult to understand. Might I suggest that he reflects on that? His colleagues in another place could perhaps carry forward that suggestion.

Andrew Dismore: I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman for his intervention. I shall say a little more about the nature of the amendment shortly, and I shall try to address his point when I do so.
	Given the significant status that international human rights treaties have attained in our domestic legal system, I certainly believe that Parliament must be much more involved in scrutinising treaties that incur human rights obligations on our behalf. In the current Parliament, my Committee has reported on one major human rights treaty prior to ratification: the UN convention on the rights of persons with disabilities. We have also reported on treaties that, while not strictly speaking human rights treaties, have human rights implications, including the Council of Europe convention on the prevention of terrorism and, in a manner of speaking, the UK-Libya prisoner transfer agreement, to which I shall refer shortly.
	When we looked at the UN convention on the rights of persons with disabilities-a major UN treaty-we conducted a detailed inquiry into the reservations and interpretive declarations put forward by the Government. We had a number of submissions from interested individuals and organisations, and oral evidence from the relevant Minister, whom we were able to question, both through correspondence and directly, on the background to those reservations. Indeed, they were somewhat modified, I think, as a result of our efforts. The report was subsequently debated in the other place.
	By contrast, we were not able to report properly on the Libya treaty, as time was not made available to enable us to do so. That treaty of all treaties should have been properly examined. At the time, it had implications for the case of al-Megrahi, the Libyan who had been imprisoned in Scotland in connection with the Lockerbie bombing. In fact, his removal to Libya did not ultimately take place under the transfer treaty, but when the treaty was under consideration, that was very much an active consideration. However, we were not able to scrutinise the matter properly because we were not given the time to do so. When we come to the relevant clause later today, I hope to say a little more about the problems that we experienced. Overall, however, the principle behind the Government's proposals is welcome, in light of our experience.
	On explanatory memorandums, under the new statutory regime a copy of the treaty has to be laid before Parliament. Although it is the Government's practice to lay an explanatory memorandum before Parliament, that is not provided for in the Bill. I believe that the key to effective parliamentary scrutiny is the timely provision of fully reasoned explanations and justifications by the Government-a point that the right hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg) just made. The explanatory memorandums that we have seen, generally speaking, do provide that. That, I suspect, is why we did not specify that they should do so in the amendment.
	However, we are surprised that the Bill does not reflect current practice under the Ponsonby rule by requiring an explanatory memorandum to be laid before Parliament at the same time as the treaty, in order to facilitate scrutiny within the 21-day period. We asked the Government whether they would turn the practice into a requirement, but they say that they do not consider it necessary to do so. However, I would suggest that it is in the Government's interests to explain their reasons to Parliament at the earliest possible opportunity. The Government say that they intend to continue their practice of laying such memorandums before Parliament, and of course we welcome that assurance, but it is not the same as having an express requirement in the Bill, which is what my amendment would achieve.
	We also asked the Government whether they would undertake to notify the relevant Select Committees when a treaty had been agreed. That was in response to an undertaking that they gave to the Procedure Committee that copies of all treaties laid before Parliament would be sent to the relevant Select Committees at the same time. This is important, because we do not have the resources systematically to monitor the laying of treaties before Parliament, and we have only 21 days in which to do our job of scrutinising them. Any time lost might therefore prevent a treaty from being scrutinised at all. That was one of the problems that we had with the prisoner transfer treaty with Libya.
	Even with an undertaking to notify the Select Committees, however, there have been delays between the laying of a treaty and their being drawn to our attention. The Libyan treaty is an example. We learned that that treaty had been laid only some way into the 21-day period. I hope that the Government will consider laying these explanatory memorandums and reinforcing their undertaking to notify Select Committees when a treaty has been laid, to enable us to do our job effectively and properly, and inform Parliament as a consequence.

Nicholas Winterton: I call Mr. Crispin Blunt.

Dominic Grieve: rose-

Nicholas Winterton: I apologise to the hon. and learned Gentleman for that inadvertent mistake.

Dominic Grieve: No apology is required, Sir Nicholas.
	The hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) has tabled an extremely sensible amendment, and I very much hope that the Government will be able to respond to his proposal in a positive way. It is clearly innocuous in its implications for the legal framework of the legislation, and it would be immeasurably helpful to Members when they come to consider treaties. The point raised by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg) was also well made. Treaties are often very difficult to understand.
	The House has a long tradition of issuing explanatory memorandums when various documents come out-particularly statutory instruments and sometimes Bills. At times those explanatory memorandums have not been very explanatory at all. In fairness to the Government, however, they have now noted the concerns that have been expressed, and my impression is that the documents are now marginally better.
	There is really no excuse for not adopting this proposal. If the House is to have informed debate, an explanatory memorandum is absolutely essential. I noticed a slight nodding of the Minister's head, and I hope that it will be possible for the Government to accept the proposal. If they are unhappy about the minutiae of the drafting, perhaps the measure could be incorporated on Report-I think there is going to have to be a Report stage-or when it goes to the other place. I rather suspect that the hon. Member for Hendon does not intend to press this matter to a vote. If he were to do so, he would have our support, but I shall not encourage him to cause the Minister that amount of distress-at least, not yet.

Douglas Hogg: I should like to endorse what has been said by the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve). The provision would make a real improvement. It is often very difficult for Members of the House-and, indeed, members of the public-fully to comprehend the reasons for and, more often, the terms of a treaty. I can see no disadvantage in adopting the process. It would be part of the process of transparency that we are all seeking to achieve, and I would very much welcome it if the Minister made it plain that he were sympathetic to the purpose of the amendment. If he were unable to accept this drafting of it, perhaps he would consider a further draft that could be tabled in another place. If the matter were put to the vote, it would have my strong support. It would represent a positive improvement, and I commend it to the House.

David Howarth: I also hope that the Government will respond positively to amendment 114. As I understand it-I think the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) mentioned this in his speech-the provision to Parliament of an explanatory memorandum alongside a treaty has been established practice since the final years of the previous Conservative Government. In addition, during the time of the present Government, it became established practice for explanatory memorandums to be sent to Select Committees, or their Chairs if Parliament is not sitting.
	There is no extra burden on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in having to undertake that; it should already be doing it. The only reluctance on the Government's part seems to be about placing such an obligation in the Bill. The intention of this part of the Bill-at least, the Government's announced intention-is precisely that procedures for dealing with treaties become a matter of statute rather than of prerogative and practice, so it is entirely consistent that that be reflected directly, and it should be required.

William Cash: I agree with the sentiments of the amendment, but I have a slight problem with the timing. Where the amendment states that there should be
	a copy of the treaty and, at the same time... an explanatory memorandum,
	I would raise the issue of ratification, to which I shall return later. Ratification means different things in different constitutions. If ratification takes place after the legislation has gone through and the expression at the same time has not enabled the explanatory memorandum to be provided before the discussion in Parliament of the treaty and, where necessary, the legislation arising from it-this is a technical issue, but an important one-the information in the explanatory memorandum would not necessarily be available at the right time to enable people to consider whether the treaty should be ratified or whether any subsequent legislation should be passed.
	This is not a difference of principle, but a matter of chronology and timing. I want the explanatory memorandum to have maximum value well before the ratification. I have tabled certain amendments, which I shall deal with indirectly, relating to whether both ratification and signature are necessary to ensuring a proper analysis of the consent required by Parliament to the proposals in a given treaty. Signature is important, but ratification could-and given the UK experience of dualism, it probably would-take place later. For reasons I have explained, more attention needs to be given to the words at the same time. I believe that when the proposal first comes forward would better ensure that we get the chronology right.

John Redwood: I welcome the amendment and I hope that it is pressed to a Division, because it is a modest and necessary improvement to legislation that falls a long way short of the stated intentions. Most Members welcome the idea that the former prerogative powers to make treaties should be properly scrutinised and then approved or rejected by this House.
	In practice, before reform began, important treaties did need this House's consent, and where treaties entailed legislation, the House's consent to that certainly was required, so it would be a foolish Government who had not ensured that a treaty had our support before they signed it and ventured forward with legislation. I welcome any strengthening of the clear right and duty of this House to scrutinise and approve or reject treaties.
	That is meant to be the Government's aim, yet the Bill strongly defends the prerogative power, and in a quite extraordinary way. The Government wish clause 24 to say that
	the treaty has been published in a way that a Minister of the Crown thinks appropriate-
	so not even the collective judgment of the Government will be required. A Minister can therefore think, under his delegated authority, that a treaty is appropriate, and then tell the House what to do. If the Government have any intention of letting Parliament in on the precious business of governance, they must see that that is nonsense, and that it must, of course, be the other way round. The House must be able to decide how the Minister will report to it and what documents are appropriate for the House's consideration, and if the Minister thinks documents are appropriate that are inappropriate, inadequate, flimsy or imperfect, or not impartial or sensibly written, I would hope that the House told the Minister so in no uncertain terms. What is the objection to the amendment, which puts this measure right by making things a bit clearer to Ministers and giving them sensible guidance?

William Cash: My right hon. Friend has just used the word appropriate. I have been looking for it in clause 24, but I think he might instead have been referring to whether in the opinion of the Minister a treaty should be ratified. On the basis that that is, indeed, the case, may I just mention a special legal significance? A reference to the opinion of the Minister serves as a message to the courts not to interfere with the judgment of the Minister. I want to talk about that later. It is extremely important, because it can take the teeth out of what we are seeking to achieve through our amendments. We want to ensure that Parliament makes the decision, not that it is the opinion of the Minister.

John Redwood: My hon. Friend is slightly ahead of my argument. In the measure that I am discussing opinion is not used. It says that
	the treaty has been published in a way that a Minister of the Crown thinks appropriate.
	That is very weak and weasely language, and the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) is wise to say that it needs strengthening-supplanting, even-in order to be much clearer in respect of the Minister.
	My hon. Friend probably had in mind clause 26(1), where none of this need apply because, apparently,
	if a Minister of the Crown is of the opinion that...the treaty should be ratified without the requirements of that section having been met,
	the Minister can come to such an opinion, and then, as my hon. Friend says, the special language is a warning to the courts.
	We therefore have weakness upon weakness from Parliament's point of view. Ministers envisage that some treaties will not be subject to its approval at all, because they are of the opinion that such treaties are none of Parliament's business. They also hope that other treaties will be rushed through without Parliament expressing an opinion because the timetable is very tight for it to debate and be involved in the ratification process. Even for treaties that go the distance under the Minister's view-those that the hon. Member for Hendon seeks to influence-we have weasel words so that reporting to the House can be anything the Minister likes and may not be very much.

Chris Bryant: indicated dissent.

John Redwood: I am delighted to see the Minister shaking his head. I am sure that that means that he will want to accept the amendment because its proposals offer an innocent and modest improvement.

Sammy Wilson: In the consultation and the Government paper on the governance of Britain, one recommendation was to put the Ponsonby proposals on a formal basis. That would have included the Government explanatory memorandum, which provides information about the contents of the treaty along with the Government's view of the benefits and burdens of the treaty. If that was what was originally envisaged, why is it not reflected in the Bill? Is this not another example of the original proposals being short-changed by this Bill?

John Redwood: The hon. Gentleman is exactly right: we do seem to be short-changed in this respect. Again, it comes down to Ministers not living the brand. They say they are bringing forward such proposals in the spirit of openness and in an attempt to strengthen the rights of parliamentarians, and therefore the people whom we represent, to some control or ability to debate such matters intelligently, but in order for Parliament to debate it, it first needs to be made more unequivocal that it is our right and duty so to do.
	Secondly, as the hon. Member for Hendon says, we need to be assured that the Minister will produce reasonable information, written in sensible English that we and our constituents can understand, so that we can have an intelligent debate about it before it is scrambled through in a hurry, only for us to repent at leisure as the years go by and we discover what the complex legal language of the treaty really meant and that it had not been properly explained or debated at the time.
	Any self-respecting Government who believed in openness, who believed in signing only the treaties that were in the nation's interest and who were proud of the treaties that they wished to sign would see nothing wrong with the hon. Gentleman's proposal and with some of the points that I am making about strengthening the scrutiny and the rights of Parliament. If the Minister cannot give any ground on this issue, that proves, once again, that the Government are not serious about having a stronger Parliament.

Chris Bryant: Sir Nicholas, it is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship.
	The reason why I was shaking my head at the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood), who knows that I have a great deal of fondness for him, was that in this particular regard he is wrong. He is wrong in two respects. The first is that the amendment would not remove any of the wording to which he was referring, about what
	a Minister of the Crown thinks appropriate.
	The amendment would not amend that element of the clause at all; it would simply add to what is published, by providing that there should be not only a copy of the treaty but an explanatory memorandum.

John Redwood: But then, of course, the amendment would modify the discretion of that Minister, because it specifies things that he would have to do, whether or not he was of that wish.

Chris Bryant: The right hon. Gentleman said in his speech that the amendment would remove the language about the Minister of Crown thinking something appropriate-but it would not. That language would still stand even if the amendment were made.

John Redwood: The amendment would modify the language; it would no longer mean what it means at the moment, because the amendment would add a list of factors on which the Minister would not have the discretion that the Bill describes.

Chris Bryant: Ever since this Government came to power we have always published explanatory memorandums, and we have every intention of continuing to do so. We publish them in relation not only to treaties but to a wide range of other documents that we publish, and that is the right thing to do. The hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) rightly said that sometimes the explanatory memorandums are not exactly very explanatory. Indeed, sometimes a greater cloud of unknowing than before descends on one after reading the explanatory memorandum. However, there is a technical difficulty with explanatory memorandums, which is that if we enter into too much explanation, we are to some extent extemporising on the text itself, and the danger is that we are then entering into a further level of debate, rather than explaining in legal terms what the treaty does.

Sammy Wilson: I accept what the Minister is saying about memorandums being published at the moment, but if that is so, why is there any reluctance on his part to include in the Bill the requirement to publish memorandums in all cases? That would take away any opportunity that cynics might have to say, Yes, that's what's usually done. The Bill gives a Minister the opportunity not to publish a memorandum, because he can decide to publish the details in whichever way he thinks appropriate. By accepting the amendment, the Minister would be accepting that there is no option but for a treaty to be handled in this way, and he would not be leaving any discretion for a future Minister.

Chris Bryant: The hon. Gentleman seems quite angry about this issue. He says that I am opposed to this idea, but I am not-I am wholly in favour of publishing explanatory memorandums that are explanatory. My only hesitation is about whether that should be specified in a Bill, because of the simple fact that we publish explanatory memoranda on a great deal of things. I realise that I am wandering between using memorandums and memoranda. I have already been accused today of not speaking Latin, so I want to be careful. I cannot remember whether this is a gerund or a gerundive. I believe it is a gerundive.  [Interruption.] Is it a gerund?  [Interruption.]
	Anyway, the point that I was trying to make before I interrupted myself was that because we publish explanatory memorandums in many other areas, not just in relation to treaties, it would seem to make sense that if we were going to do so, that should be for the House to decide as a matter of House business, not a matter for the Government to decide and to put in statute.

Douglas Hogg: The Minister was expressing an anxiety that too much detail in an explanatory memorandum reopens the question and tends to enlarge the debate. Of course he will know that explanatory memoranda on Bills-I have one in front of me on the Crime and Security Bill-say in terms that they are strictly to help inform debate and do not in fact form part of the Bill. An explanatory memorandum on a treaty could be couched in similar language and would not, therefore, run the risk that clearly troubles the Minister.

Chris Bryant: The right hon. and learned Gentleman is absolutely right. I think that we have steered the right course, and I am grateful to him for his helpful contribution.

William Cash: On the question of the Ponsonby rule, it is, as the Minister says, frequently-invariably, in fact-the case that a short explanatory memorandum is made available to go with the deposit under the Ponsonby rule. However, he knows that since 2000 there has been an extension of the arrangements with respect to certain departmental Select Committees, the consequence of which is that the treaty is referred to the relevant Committee, too. Obviously, an explanatory memorandum would have to be made available with adequate information at that point in time. I think that I am largely agreeing with some of the things that the Minister is saying. There is a pattern of behaviour, but for the reasons that I gave earlier, it is essential that this measure should not be tied exclusively to the normal time of ratification, which comes at the end of the process in English constitutional law. We really need to ensure that we have the explanatory memorandum available at the time when it can be most and best used.

Chris Bryant: indicated assent.

William Cash: I am glad that the Minister is nodding his head; it is most unusual for us to agree. It is important to get the chronology right and to make the most of the important point that the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) is making.

Nicholas Winterton: Order. Using my discretion, I am allowing rather lengthy interventions that appear to me to be almost speeches. I am doing so because of the complication of this matter and the need for total clarification.

Chris Bryant: I am glad that you have done so, Sir Nicholas, because I wholeheartedly agreed with what the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) just said. That is the first time that he and I have ever agreed.

Andrew Dismore: I have two points for my hon. Friend. He says that there is a risk of too much detail being given, but the phrasing of the amendment does not give rise to that risk. It simply requires the background to the treaty, the reasons why we should ratify it and, most importantly, the reasons for any reservations or interpretative declarations, if there are any, to be published. That is particularly important, as we saw when we considered the convention on the rights of persons with disabilities. My hon. Friend asked why a requirement for an explanatory memorandum should be laid down in statute in this case but not in others. The short answer is: the time limit. There is a clear time limit of 21 days under the Ponsonby rule, which does not apply in the other circumstances in which explanatory memorandums are published, such as those for Bills.

Chris Bryant: No, that is not true. I am grateful to my hon. Friend-and incidentally, I am glad that he has tabled this amendment, because this is one of the significant issues in trying to ensure that we scrutinise treaties better. That is not only our aim but our determination. Other elements of the legislative process, too, are subject to time limits, and their explanatory memorandums are not required in statute. My sole objection is to writing the procedure into the Bill.
	I want to respond to the point made by the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) that some treaties would be brought forward and some would not. That is not true. Arthur Ponsonby, when he was Under-Secretary of State in 1924, said:
	It is the intention of His Majesty's Government to lay on the Table of both Houses of Parliament every Treaty, when signed, for a period of 21 days, after which the treaty will be ratified and published and circulated in the Treaty Series.-[ Official Report 1 April 1924; Vol. 171, c. 2003.]
	We are not resiling from that one jot. It was a Labour member of the Foreign Office team who introduced that in 1924. When the Conservatives came to power subsequently they got rid of the Ponsonby rule, and it took a Labour Government to reinstate it afterwards.

David Heath: The explanatory memorandum is obviously of value. However, what is essential-I think this is the point that was made by the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore)-is to see the reservations or interpretive declarations that the Minister intends to enter on ratification. Without that, the House cannot form an opinion on the value of the Bill.
	The Minister is not entirely right to say that this is a House matter. The House cannot require Ministers to lay anything before us, except as provided in statute. It is therefore important that if the procedure is to be put into statute, it should be laid out fully on the face of the Bill.

Chris Bryant: In the public consultation before the publication of the draft Bill, that was one of the aspects on which we expressly invited comment. We referred to the fact that the present practice of laying an explanatory memorandum with the treaty exists. There were very few comments on that, and it did not seem to be a major matter of contention. That is probably because everybody accepts that this is such a settled practice that nobody would resile from it. The only point of difference between us is whether it should be specified in the Bill.

Douglas Hogg: As I understood the Minister's anxiety, it was something like this: it is odd to impose a requirement with regard to treaties yet not to put into a Bill a requirement as regards other Bills. Surely the answer to that objection is as follows: this Bill sets out a procedure for treaties, and therefore gives us an opportunity to deal with procedure governing all treaties. If we had a Bill that dealt with Bills-for example, an interpretation of statute Bill-that would provide an opportunity to set out our desired procedures for all Bills. We now have the opportunity to regulate the procedure regarding treaties, and surely we should take it.

Chris Bryant: I can see the argument that the right hon. and learned Gentleman is making. I do not feel particularly strongly about the issue, I must say. I welcomed the fact that my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon tabled the amendment, but my judgment still leads me to the impression that it would be a mistake for the requirement to be written into the Bill, and therefore for the requirement to be in statute in relation to treaties, but not in relation to any of the other business that we do. Consequently, I urge my hon. Friend to withdraw his amendment. The issue is not necessarily closed in the Government's mind.

Andrew Dismore: I am pleased that my hon. Friend says that the issue is not closed in the Government's mind. Although I do not plan to press the amendment to a Division today, my colleagues on the Joint Committee in the other place may well bring it back. One of the advantages of the Joint Committee is that we can operate a double act between the two Houses to follow up issues raised in one House or the other.
	I am pleased that the Government have given an assurance that they will continue with the process of laying explanatory memorandums, but as my hon. Friend indicated in his response, it does not follow that a future Government would do the same. He mentioned that the Ponsonby rule was introduced under a Labour Government-very good. It was, in effect, abolished by the Conservative Government. It was a convention, not in statute.
	Once the rule is in statute, it would be difficult for a future Government of whatever hue to repeal it. They would have to come to the House to do that, whereas they did not have to do so to break with a convention. There is nothing to stop a future Government saying, We will continue with the statutory duty to lay the treaty, but not the duty-because it is not a duty, just a convention-to lay an explanatory memorandum. This matter is important because of the timetable. This Bill proposes a very strict timetable, and we will debate later the provisions for its extension-or, as a mirror image of that, its removal. The point is that very few of the things that we do here are subject to such a tight timetable.
	I mentioned earlier the problems that we had with the Libya prisoner transfer treaty, when we did not have the material in time to produce a report at all. We were able to publish only the exchange over the reasons why the treaty was not going to be extended, so this is quite an important issue.
	I should also like to take further the question that I raised in my earlier intervention on the Minister. He suggested that the amendment required too much detail, but it does not require any more detail than the present arrangements. It is up to the Government to say what should or should not go into the explanatory memorandum.
	There are three basic requirements in the amendment. The first two are that the explanatory memorandum should set out the background to a treaty and why it should be ratified, and I do not see the difficulty with either of those. However, the most important requirement in the amendment is its proposal that the explanatory memorandum should set out the reasons for any interpretive declarations or reservations. That is because until we see the explanatory memorandum, we cannot know what the Government may be proposing in relation to reservations. Only when we see the explanatory memorandum can we be aware of what they are proposing in that regard, or even whether there will be any reservations.

David Heath: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that this is where the treaty process differs from the Bill process? The ratification of a Bill effectively happens when Her Majesty the Queen gives it Royal Assent. She very rarely writes reservations or declaratory statements in the margins of a Bill.

Andrew Dismore: The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point, although I am not sure that I should extend his analogy to the modest proposal that I am making here.

Chris Bryant: My hon. Friend should not take too much advice from the Liberal Democrats, as the ratification of a treaty does not take place when Her Majesty signifies assent-

David Heath: That is not what I said.

Chris Bryant: In which case, I misheard the hon. Gentleman.

Andrew Dismore: I think that the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) said that the equivalent of ratification for a Bill happens when Her Majesty gives it Royal Assent. To that extent, he is right: a Bill becomes law only when it has been ratified by the Queen through Royal Assent, but as far as I am aware she does not enter reservations or interpretive declarations on Bills passed by Parliament.
	There is a difference here. If Parliament is to discuss these matters properly, it needs to know at the very earliest opportunity whether there are going to be reservations or interpretive declarations. The best object lesson in that regard was the treaty that I mentioned earlier, the UN convention on the rights of people with disabilities. We had to do an awful lot of work on the issues involved in that, but it was only when we saw the explanatory memorandum that we knew that there were problems in the first place. Without an explanatory memorandum, the House, or a Select Committee, could discuss a matter in the abstract without knowing what problems could arise. That would be a waste of time.
	I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will think again on this amendment. I am pretty sure that my colleagues on the Committee in the other place will bring it back, so he will have time to think about it.

William Cash: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the amendment could include another type of reservation-one that covers the ratification of European treaties? Many of us consider a reservation requiring a referendum to be held to ensure that a matter such as the Lisbon treaty would have been properly discussed by the British people to be absolutely crucial.

Andrew Dismore: The hon. Gentleman wants to take me down a rather different byway. His own amendments will be debated soon, so I shall hold my tongue on the point that he raises, as I think that it is something of a distraction from what we are trying to achieve with the amendment before us. As I said, I do not propose to press that amendment to a Division, so I beg to ask leave to withdraw it.
	 Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

David Howarth: I beg to move amendment 1, page 12, leave out lines 41 and 42 and insert-
	'(c) both Houses of Parliament have resolved that the treaty should be ratified.'.

Nicholas Winterton: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
	Amendment 2, page 13, line 1, leave out subsection (2).
	Amendment 3, page 13, line 3, leave out subsection (3).
	Amendment 4, page 13, line 5, leave out subsection (4).
	Amendment 5, page 13, line 11, leave out subsection (5).
	Amendment 6, page 13, line 13, leave out subsection (6).
	Amendment 7, page 13, leave out lines 15 to 20 and insert-
	'(7) Where the House of Commons has resolved that a treaty should be ratified but the House of Lords has not so resolved, and a period of 21 sitting days has elapsed since the House of Commons resolved that the treaty should be ratified, any member of the House of Commons may move that the treaty should be ratified despite the failure of the House of Lords so to resolve, and if such a resolution is carried by the House of Commons, the House of Lords shall be deemed for the purposes of subsection (1)(c) to have resolved that the treaty should be ratified.
	(8) The preceding subsection does not apply where the House of Lords has resolved that the treaty should not be ratified (but defeat of a motion in favour of ratification does not count by itself as a resolution that the treaty should not be ratified).
	Amendment 8, in clause 25, page 13, line 23, leave out
	'the period mentioned in section 24 (1) (c)'
	and insert
	'the period of 21 days mentioned in section 24 (the period after which the House of Commons may pass a motion the effect of which is to deem that the House of Lords has resolved that the treaty should be ratified)'.
	Clause 24 stand part.
	The fact that we are having a stand part debate on clause 24 means that any Member can raise any issue relating to that clause.

David Howarth: We come to the main issue, which is about the way in which the Government have chosen to attempt to fulfil their promise, in The Governance of Britain Green Paper, to shift power towards the House and away from themselves. I fear that in clause 24, they have failed to do so.
	There cannot be many countries where the power to ratify a treaty rests solely with the Executive branch-with the Government. There is, as the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) said, a safeguard, which the courts created-the so-called dualist theory of international law, whereby the ratification of a treaty by the Government does not by itself change the domestic law of this country. But it is still a thoroughly bad thing that the Government can, by themselves, bind this country in international law and then come to the House and say, If you don't incorporate the international obligations that we have just made into domestic law, this country will be in breach of international law.

Douglas Hogg: A very good example of that is the treaty that the Government entered into with the United States regarding the extradition of UK subjects to the United States.

David Howarth: That is an excellent example. The relevant Secretary of State-I believe that it was the Home Secretary at the time-went to Washington and negotiated a treaty without any reference to this House, and then they put this House in the position whereby, if it had not acceded to the Government's wishes on how to implement that treaty in domestic law, this country would have been in violation of its international obligations to the United States.

William Cash: The hon. Gentleman said that he would be surprised if many other countries took the dualist approach, but he will find that it applies to almost all, if not all, former colonies of the United Kingdom-with the prime exception, as it happens, of the United States of America.

David Howarth: Yes, it does not apply in the United States of America, and that is because of the explicit terms of its constitution. I think that article 6 incorporates treaties into domestic US law, and that is why the Senate's consent is required to ratify treaties. The US has brought the two legal systems together as we have not.

William Cash: We have our rather exclusive arrangement precisely because of the struggles, which this House itself represents, in the 17th century regarding Charles I, the constitutional settlements that followed the king's execution and the specific constitutional arrangement that we came to. That led to our modern democracy.

David Howarth: The hon. Gentleman is right, but I still think that there is unfinished business from that time. The idea that the Government, representing the Crown, have such fundamental and exclusive power over the foreign relations of this country is incompatible with the democratic form of government. That is why this clause is so important. It is about, or ought to be about, putting that situation right.

Chris Bryant: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is right, although I think that there are a large number of countries-in particular, those with presidential systems-where it is entirely for the Executive to decide such matters, including, for instance, matters of military conflict.
	On treaties, however, the hon. Gentleman referred to the UK-US extradition treaty. It was signed on 31 March 2003, published and laid with an explanatory memorandum on 21 May, and the Ponsonby period ended on 30 June. There were no requests for debate at that time, and no requests for an extension of time.

David Howarth: I shall not anticipate my speech, but that illustrates why there ought to be an affirmative procedure, rather than a negative procedure. The negative procedure depends on the Opposition, or Government Back Benchers, noticing what is going on; with an affirmative procedure, the Government would be duty-bound to come to the House to explain what they had done. As they are in a far better position than the Opposition to know what they have done, that appears to be the right procedure.
	As the Minister just illustrated, the current rules-the Ponsonby rules-are a compromise between this House having real power and the Government having all the power. However, that is only a convention, and a grace and favour convention at that; the Minister mentioned that some Governments have not recognised it. It is entirely unsatisfactory, constitutionally, for this situation to continue. There have been numerous calls for reform-I need not go through them all. The Public Administration Committee even produced a draft Bill, drafted by Rodney Brazier, which the Government rejected, seemingly on the grounds that it would mean that Ministers would have to do more work, which does not appear to be a constitutional principle.
	Then we arrive at the White Paper of 2007, The Governance of Britain, in which-this was the new Prime Minister's first great act as Prime Minister-the Government said that, contrary to their previous position, they would now move towards bringing into statute at least the conventions that we currently have, and promised to shift the balance between Parliament and the Government. However, the way in which clause 24 has been drafted means that it is hardly worth having. The Minister noted that part of the convention is that if an Opposition party-the main Opposition party or the third party-requests a debate and a vote on a treaty within a 21-day-period, the Government, by convention, use their power to grant that debate. Where is that stated in the Bill? It is simply not there. This is another case of the Government not wanting to be bound by statute in the exercise of their power to control the agenda of this House.

Douglas Hogg: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman could help me on this point, because he knows more about it than I do. I notice that the matter will not be debated unless the House has resolved that the treaty should not be ratified. My understanding of parliamentary procedure is that it is for the Government to table a motion that it should not be ratified unless it is debated. I can see no obligation in the Bill for the Government to put down such a motion on the Order Paper of the House.

David Howarth: That is entirely right. That is my main point about the defects in the clause.
	The Government have stipulated a negative procedure. The great defect of negative procedures is that the Government have total control over the agenda of the House. They may choose not to allow an annulling resolution to come before the House for debate for the 21-day period, as they can under the existing arrangements in Standing Order No. 14: for example, they can ensure that an Opposition day is not held in that 21-day period. If they do that, they can obtain ratification of a treaty without any parliamentary discussion.

Dominic Grieve: The hon. Gentleman is making an important point. When I looked at the clause my first instinct was that there was some point in having a negative procedure, because some treaties will not concern or bother the House at all. However, he is right to highlight the fact that if we are to have such a procedure, there must be a system to ensure that the Government cannot prevent the negative resolution from being tabled and debated in the 21-day period.

David Howarth: Yes, that would be an alternative to the method that I propose. Amendment 1 would introduce an affirmative procedure, for two reasons that have already been discussed: first, because the Government are in a much better position to know what they have done; and secondly, because that would guarantee a vote-not a debate, but a vote.
	Actually, now that I think about it, the Ponsonby rule was developed at a time when the Government did not have control over the agenda of the House every day. I suspect that they had control over three days out of the five in the week. Earlier, they had control over only two. I suspect that they could not have prevented a private Member's notice to disapprove of a treaty from being brought forward. We are in an entirely different situation now with regard to what the House can do about a treaty that the Government simply show they intend to ratify without yet having done so.

William Cash: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that as we feel our way towards some kind of understanding and solution on this matter, part of the problem is categorisation? It is well established that the Government normally give time for debate and sometimes a vote on what are described as important treaties. The problem is what is described as important. Perhaps an answer to the question whether there should be a negative or affirmative procedure is that there should be criteria to determine what is important and what is not so important. Those criteria could determine which categories of treaties should be regarded as essential for debate and a vote. That could include memorandums of understanding and other matters that fall into the category of being of incredible importance for discussion. That raises the question of signature, about which I shall speak later.

David Howarth: That might be a way forward, but my preference is to say that there should be an affirmative procedure unless the requirement to do otherwise is proven. That should be the default option.
	If I understand clause 24 correctly, it is even more extraordinary than it first appears. It seems to suggest that if by some miracle the House of Commons votes against a treaty in a resolution, the Government then get another go. They can say that they disagree with the House, then wait another 21 days and ratify anyway. If the House votes against the treaty again within that 21-day period, the Government get another 21 days. They can keep disagreeing with the Commons until the Commons gives up. That seems quite appalling. The Government should not be allowed to defy the Commons at all, not even once. When it has voted not to ratify a treaty, that should be it.
	If we go further into the clause, we get to the powers of the House of Lords, which is in an even worse position than the Commons. If it votes against a treaty, it can be overridden by mere ministerial fiat. A Minister can simply sign a declaration stating that he disagrees with the House of Lords. The clause seems to be a mere show-a shadow play, a simulacrum of change. If we look through the whole clause, we see that no real power is being transferred to the House at all.
	What should we do about that farce? Our amendments are intended to put the situation right in three different ways. As I have mentioned, amendment 1 would replace the negative procedure with the affirmative so that treaties would not be ratified unless both Houses of Parliament had positively approved them. There would be no get-out clause whereby the Government could simply override a House of Parliament. That is the second point of the amendments-the Government would not have a second go in the Commons.

Chris Bryant: I am slightly perplexed. Is the hon. Gentleman really suggesting that every single treaty that is agreed should have to go through a positive vote in this House and the Lords?

David Howarth: What happens with affirmative statutory instruments is precisely that. There is not a debate on every one, but there is an order to be taken in the House after 10 o'clock, and if anyone wants to vote against it we end up with a deferred Division on a Wednesday lunchtime. There is at least a vote.

Dominic Grieve: The hon. Gentleman is right, but of course one problem with statutory instruments is that they operate until they are negatived, whereas the difficulty with a treaty is that once it is ratified, it exists as an international obligation. As we know from our discussions on the Lisbon treaty, Parliament cannot do much about it afterwards. That is why the key response that the Government have to provide in this debate-I am sure that he is right about this-is on how there can be a guarantee that the House will be in a position to bring forward a negative resolution and debate it within the 21-day period, and that the Government will not use a sleight of hand to wriggle out of their obligation in that respect. If they cannot provide that response, my sympathies will switch entirely to the hon. Gentleman and I will say that the clause is not worth the paper it is written on. At the moment, I take it at face value that the Government are well intentioned.

David Howarth: My hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) said in the debate on the programme motion that this was a constitutional Bill. One principle when debating constitutional matters is that one should assume that the powers granted by the law will be operated by people who are not well intentioned, even though those proposing them might well be. That is why I strongly prefer the guarantees of the affirmative procedure. How to deal with that procedure would be a matter for the House, and the Government would not have to hold a debate on each and every treaty, but there would at least be the opportunity of a vote, perhaps by deferred Division.

William Cash: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that some of the problems could be overcome if we were to go down the route of attaching the approval of Parliament to the signing of a treaty, rather than to ratification, which tends to take place at the end of the process? That would be the right sequence. If I may go back to the 17th century for a moment, I have in mind the fact that King Charles II brought forward the secret treaty of Dover precisely to avoid Parliament being involved, so that he could carry on with subsidies from Louis XIV. That is not just an historical allusion, because we wish to bring forward the whole process to ensure that Parliament is involved. That is a really important proposal that has to be got right. I suggest that the signature consenting to a treaty is more important than the ratification that takes place at the end of the process.

David Howarth: The hon. Gentleman raises two points. I agree that having some sort of control over the negotiating of a treaty before it is signed is important. However, Parliament having control of ratification through a vote would be an important deterrent that would work its way backwards through the entire procedure.
	The hon. Gentleman's reference to the treaty of Dover raises in my mind another reason to ensure that there is an affirmative procedure in the Bill. One problem with the Treasury's alignment project, which he will have come across, is that future estimates will come to the House in net, not gross, form. The previous procedure of limiting a Department's income through the appropriation-in-aid procedure will be got rid of, which will mean that Departments can collect money from other places without parliamentary control and present Parliament with only the net amount that they require from us. The hon. Gentleman provides yet another reason for having the affirmative procedure, because we must maintain control over expenditure.

Douglas Hogg: Might I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that what is clearly troubling a number of hon. Members is the fact that some treaties will be of relatively minor importance and will not require debate? Is not a sensible way forward to agree to the amendment in his name, with a modification to be made in the other place, so that generally speaking, treaties will be both debated and approved before ratification, unless the House resolves that debate is unnecessary, in which case a resolution will suffice-in other words, to create the presumption that there is debate and approval with a disapplying mechanism?

David Howarth: Yes. That would be a way of resolving the problem of having a debate. Amendment 1 would require only a vote. It does not cover the question whether there should be a debate, which can be dealt with later.
	The third improvement-the final one I shall mention-that amendments 1, 2 and 8 seek to achieve is to the position of the Lords. We are trying to achieve an analogous situation to what happens with statutory instrument in the Lords. Very often when the Lords discusses a statutory instrument, it has the power to bring it down-to annul it or refuse its approval-with the effect that it does not come into law. However, it rarely uses that power, by convention. Instead, it has what it calls a non-fatal resolution, under which it says that it disapproves of the statutory instrument the Government propose, but does not exercise its technical power to refuse legal force. The amendments on the Lords would merely reproduce that system. In the end, the Commons would be more important in the procedure, and the Lords would be able to say it disapproves of a treaty without bringing it down.
	It seems to me that clause 24 is seriously defective, because the Government's intention appears to have been to write a clause that looks as if it transfers power when it does not. The intention of the amendments is to fulfil the Government's promise in reality, and change the system for the ratification of treaties so that real power comes back to this place.

Dominic Grieve: The amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth) seem to me to have some considerable force. The key issue is that Parliament should be able to express its view on treaties in the way the Government appear to intend. As I have indicated, I differ from him because I think the idea that we have affirmative resolutions for every treaty the Government sign is a burden that this House need not take on. If we did, it would gradually dawn on the House just how irrelevant the vast majority of such treaties would in fact be regarding many of the issues we must consider.
	When I saw amendments 1, 2 and 8, I was not minded to support them, because-this certainly applies to amendment 1-they seemed to go far further than required if this House is to do its job properly. However, the hon. Gentleman makes a very important point. Because the Minister is fairly well versed in the mysteries of procedure in this House, he will know that they are woefully wanting when it comes to providing proper opportunities for scrutiny.
	It is perfectly possible for the Government to slip out of considering a negative resolution in a 21-day period, if they were minded to behave in that disgraceful fashion, because they control the Order Paper. The only opportunity the Opposition have to debate such a matter if the Government will not facilitate it is an Opposition day debate. If there is no such day in that 21-day period-I am sure some of my hon. Friends will correct me if I am wrong on this-it would be impossible to get the matter debated.
	I hate to say it, but we have had that problem before. On a number of occasions, we have had statutory instruments or other matters that for one reason and another we wanted to bring to the Floor of the House. I can still remember being told, with such a lovely smile from the Leader of the House, simply to bring it along on an Opposition day debate. It is quite true that we could debate a substantive motion on an Opposition day, but that is when we get our Supply day. The truth of the matter is that that is not in our control. If we are indeed to move along the lines the Government are suggesting-I assume that they are acting in all sincerity, but that as usual, the full implications of the drafting have not sunk in for them-they must show in the Bill the mechanism by which the House can ensure that, should it wish to do so, it can have a negative resolution in that 21-day period. I am sure the Minister will consider that reasonable.
	If I am wrong about that-the Minister's advisers can advise him and he might persuade the House of that-I will be content with the proposed arrangements, but if I am not, they must be corrected. The question at that point would be how we are going to do that. It could happen on Report or in the other place, but we must give the Government an incentive to do something about the problem. If they cannot give us the assurances we need, I would be minded to support amendment 1 if it were pressed to a Division, not because I want an affirmative procedure-I do not think that that is in any way necessary-but because it is time the Government woke up to the deficiencies in this House's scrutiny, which, heaven knows, we have complained long and hard about, before they give us a measure that may turn out to be a damp squib when it comes to the House's effectiveness.
	On that point, I hope the Minister has time to consider the matter and provide us with persuasive arguments, or at least with an assurance that something is going to be done. Otherwise, we are going to have to mark our unhappiness at the measure. The only other way we could do that is by voting against clause 24 in its totality, which I am not sure is a very good idea because, as I should like to explain to him, we support the broad thrust of what the Government are trying to do.

Douglas Hogg: I am rather closer to the position of the hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth) than I am to that of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve). It is important to go back to first principles and to ask what is a treaty and what its implications often are to the citizens of our country.
	A treaty is, of course, an obligation that we make to other states and sometimes to international bodies. Very often, that is then reflected in domestic legislation, which bears on the individual citizen. A good example of that is the extradition treaty with the United States, about which we have spoken. Therefore, the starting proposition should be that a treaty is debated as well as approved by the House-that seems a good starting point to me. One must then ask in what circumstances that initial presumption is to be displaced. We then come to the point made by my hon. and learned Friend, which I am sure is true to a degree, that a number of treaties are of minor significance and we should not place a burden on the House.
	At this point, I have a question to which the Minister may respond in due time. Typically, how many treaties are there each year?

Chris Bryant: Thirty.

Douglas Hogg: Thirty is not a huge number. Is that the typical number or an average figure?

Chris Bryant: I do not know whether it is average mean or median.

Douglas Hogg: We are not going to fall out, Sir Nicholas. Thirty is obviously the figure the Minister has in mind. Therefore what we are talking about is a rebuttable presumption that the House both debates and approves 30 treaties. I think that the House should be obliged to approve all of them by way of some form of affirmative procedure. However, I acknowledge that the House should not be obliged to debate all of them. Therefore, we have to find a way through the conundrum of requiring the approval of the House by some affirmative procedure, but allowing it to decide not to debate. Surely it is not beyond the wit of the constitutional experts available to this House-who are numerous, although they often get it wrong-to devise a mechanism that achieves that.
	I looked at today's Order Paper and I noticed a devil of a lot of motions, which the House will be asked to approve, that we will not debate-motions 4, 5, 6 and 7. That is a significant number of the 30 that we are talking about.

Dominic Grieve: My right hon. and learned Friend highlights the extent to which the House has been further disabled because motions on the Order Paper that are objected to at 10 pm never get debated unless they are agreed on both sides. They get voted on on the following Wednesday without debate. We are in a mess on this, which is why the Government's assurances are so scant.

Douglas Hogg: My hon. and learned Friend is entirely right. I have not voted in a deferred Division for many years and I propose never to vote in one again, because they are profoundly unconstitutional and I wish to have nothing to do with them. The serious point is that we should create the two presumptions of which I have spoken and allow the House to disapply the requirement to have a debate in appropriate circumstances.

David Heath: The hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) did not quite describe the position. A motion that is objected to simply returns on the next day's Order Paper until it is debated. That is the weapon that Back Benchers have to ensure the debate of something that the Government find it inconvenient to debate. If that were combined with the requirement to ratify within 21 days, it would provide an imperative for the Government to allow time to debate a ratification motion.

Douglas Hogg: These are arcane subjects for me, despite how long I have been here. I still favour the two presumptions: the House should always be asked to approve and, until it does so, ratification cannot take place, but we cannot always be required to debate the issue.
	The hon. Member for Cambridge is right to suggest that the negative procedure in clause 24 is not a proper safeguard. As we know, and as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield pointed out, control of the business lies in the grasp of the Government. If they choose not to put forward a resolution under the negative procedure, the resolution will not be put forward. We must not always assume that all members of the Government are men of good faith. We have to recognise that Governments can behave improperly, badly and malevolently. I do not suggest that the Minister comes into that category, but-as I have said frequently in this House-if power is given away, we can be sure that it will be abused. Therefore, we should give away the minimum of power that we can get away with and ensure that the power that is given away is set about with constraints. The protection that would be built in in this case is not sufficient. Therefore, if the hon. Gentleman pushes his amendment to a Division, I shall vote with him.

William Cash: I have reservations about much of what has been discussed, but not the principle that lies behind it. I am glad to say that we have moved on from the 17th century to the 21st century and we are now seriously and properly discussing something that the Government sort of intend to achieve-that Parliament should be involved in the process of treaty making. That is a significant constitutional change in its own right. However, the trouble is that the Government have put so many caveats in clauses 24 to 26 that I am inclined to agree that there are not many options left if the Government decide, in relation to a specific treaty, that they do not want to have the full force of these provisions applied.
	I may be missing something, but the amendments would not delete clause 24(7) and (8). They cannot be removed from the Bill by some sort of sleight of hand by reference to clause 24(1)(c).

David Howarth: Amendment 7 would leave out lines 15 to 20 on page 13 of the Bill.

William Cash: I accept that point. This is the Committee stage, in which we have to examine how amendments are presented, and I am happy to accept the fact that that is what amendment 7 would achieve. However, I have some reservations about what would be put in place of subsections (7) and (8). We are still left with the problem that clause 26 provides that clause 24 would not apply in exceptional cases. What criteria would apply in that case? Clause 26 states that a Minister need only be of the opinion that an exception should be made. As I said in an intervention on my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood), once we enter that territory, we are instructing the courts that an issue is a matter of judgment for a Minister, and applying the word exceptionally to that muddies the waters considerably. Without wishing to impugn the motives of the Government-although I am happy to do so on most occasions-I am afraid that they have ended up with something that is almost contradictory. It says on the one hand that the courts should not interfere, but, on the other, that if a Minister decides that a treaty is an exceptional case, the courts should have some latitude in deciding whether that is so.
	The drafting of these clauses worries me, and I return to my concerns about ratification versus signature. If we were to relate the questions being considered to signature rather than ratification, the provisions would contain the appropriate criteria for deciding how the consent was arrived at-because it is consent that we should be considering, not merely the mechanics of ratification.
	As I have said on several occasions, in the British constitutional context, ratification tends to take place at the end of the procedure, as I found out to my cost-but not actually to my costs-when I took the Government to court over the Lisbon treaty. I sought to go to the High Court, but was turned down on the grounds that I was engaging in a political exercise-which of course was not true, was it, Sir Nicholas?

Chris Bryant: How would you know, Sir Nicholas?

William Cash: I meant it in a purely rhetorical sense.

Douglas Hogg: Good job it wasn't in an affidavit.

William Cash: Well quite!
	My attempt to frustrate ratification on that occasion was turned down by the administrative court on the grounds that I was seeking to engage in a political exercise, but it did not award costs against me.
	In 1993-I think-an important case was also brought by Lord Rees-Mogg in respect of ratification. All such cases turn on when the ratification takes place, by which time the particular Bill has gone through, and the legislation has endorsed the treaty and so on. These are fundamental questions. If the Government say in good faith that there should be a moment for Parliament properly to influence the process, that moment should come on signature, not ratification. I shall explain later why that is so important and relate it to what is contained in the Vienna convention.
	Those are serious matters. For some of the reasons given by the hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth), the procedure proposed by the Government in clauses 24 to 26 is a smokescreen. The Government-I accused them of this in the debate on the programme motion-are engaged in a process of hypocrisy. The idea of good governance, the ideas in the Green Paper and all the other things that have been referred to give the impression that the Government want the British people and Parliament to be fully involved in the making of treaties. I am afraid, however, that the way they are doing that gives them far too much of a get out.
	As Mr. Bowman of the Nottingham treaty centre said, the Bill contains a significant loophole in respect of memorandums of understanding, which I mentioned earlier. Many treaty-like documents do not fall within the framework of the provisions and, as with the Ponsonby rule, only treaties requiring ratification or similar are covered. For example, excluded, but covered by special procedures, would be double taxation agreements and European treaties-no doubt we will come to that later. I have in mind arrangements under European parliamentary legislation and special procedures applied under the European Communities Act 1972, as amended. Many other types of treaty, such as defence treaties, including-interestingly enough-not unimportant treaties on the stationing of ballistic missiles, would not be included. Indeed, many international lawyers regard memorandums of understanding as actual treaties.
	There is a certain disingenuousness in the Government's proposals-they go so far but not far enough-and an element of what I have described as hypocrisy in how they have presented them. However, I do not want to be too critical because basically they are moving in the right direction. Between the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Cambridge, the remarks by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) and the Government's proposals, we are making some progress. However, I do not think that the drafting is good enough nor the intentions sufficiently comprehensive. We are moving in the right direction but not achieving enough.

Sammy Wilson: The hon. Gentleman is making an important point. Although the intentions might have been good-all the earlier documentation indicates that they were-the reality might not be reflecting that. However, is the simple answer not to go along with the amendment, which would mean that all treaties would be subject to affirmative resolutions in the House?

William Cash: That would present problems. I have some sympathy with the Government, given the number of documents, including treaty-like amendments, that I would have in mind for inclusion in such arrangements. I have already mentioned ballistic missile agreements and memorandums of understanding. Once we have established a category for the kind of treaties included in such arrangements, they should be categorised into different types of important treaty-that takes us back to something that I said earlier.
	Finally-

Douglas Hogg: rose-

William Cash: Before I give way to my right hon. and learned Friend, I would add that some believe strongly that there should be what is called the non-statutory soft mandating mechanism allowing Parliament to have some influence on the negotiation of a treaty, at least immediately before signature, which is why I tabled my amendment.

Douglas Hogg: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. He will know that I do not normally encourage him to go on longer than he feels that he wants to, but I seek his view on one matter. He has made an important point about memorandums of understanding falling outside the definition of a treaty. He also said the same thing about missile siting agreements. However, on the face of it-I am not an international lawyer-the definition of a treaty in clause 28(1) would include a memorandum of understanding, if it is
	a written agreement...between States or...international organisations, and...binding under international law.
	I ask myself why, if a memorandum of understanding is binding, does it not come within the statutory definition of a treaty? I would welcome my hon. Friend's guidance.

William Cash: I think that the short answer can be found in clause 28(2), which states that
	'treaty' does not include a regulation, rule, measure, decision or similar instrument made under a treaty.
	It is accepted that that needs to be more explicit. That is where the problem lies and clarification is needed. I do not depart from the point that my right hon. and learned Friend is making. At the moment, the clause refers to a written agreement, but the memorandum of understanding is not necessarily an agreement. We will need further clarification on that. The commentators whom I have had the opportunity to read are clearly of the opinion that what is referred to in the Bill, including clause 28, does not go far enough. Furthermore-I make this point yet again-the reference to ratification does not appear early enough in the process.
	My right hon. and learned Friend is right to ask the question that he did but, as with so much of the debate, we will need greater clarification. That is why I will find it difficult simply to agree with the amendment put forward by the hon. Member for Cambridge.
	Treaties do not come out of thin air, but they sometimes go up in a puff of smoke. That is the problem that we have to be careful about. If the Government really want to include the right kind of arrangements between states, they will have to clarify the provisions. I would be interested to hear from the Minister why the provisions are not sufficiently comprehensive-he may argue that they are sufficiently comprehensive, but it is quite clear that all the distinguished commentators and jurists whose works I have been reading do not believe that to be the case. I would like to hear what the Minister has to say about that.

David Heath: I do not want to reiterate any of the arguments so ably made by my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (David Howarth). We have put a strong proposition before the House and it needs an appropriate response from the Minister. If that ministerial response is insufficiently strong, I hope that my hon. Friend will push the matter to a vote. However, we are also dealing with clause 24 stand part, and in that context I want briefly to touch on two points, both of which depend on the opinion of the Minister.
	This issue was raised earlier, but I am not clear under what circumstances the Minister might be of the opinion that his view should take precedence over that of the House of Commons. That is what is implied by clause 24(4)(a), which sets out a mechanism-there must be a reason for this mechanism being there-by which a Minister can simply say, The House of Commons has voted against this treaty, but we still believe we ought to go ahead. Nothing could be a clearer indication of the shallowness of the provision before us if it would be possible for a Government to put a matter before the House of Commons, be defeated and still proceed. I know that there is a certain precedent for that-when referendums go the wrong way, they tend to be repeated until the right answer eventually emerges-but that should not be built into the proposal before us. I should like the Minister to explain why he believes that provision to be a necessary part of the clause and under what circumstances he believes it would be appropriate to use that mechanism.

William Cash: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

David Heath: The hon. Gentleman has only just sat down, but I should be happy for him to stand up again.

William Cash: By using the expressions contained in the Bill, we are moving to a situation where the judiciary will be increasingly drawn into such questions. If that is the case, muddying the waters-through the conjunction of, on the one hand, the phrase of the opinion of the Minister and, on the other, the word exceptionally-will draw us into a real tangle. The judiciary is notoriously anxious to avoid getting involved in treaty interpretation, if at all possible. There is therefore a serious question to be addressed-if not in this sitting, then on Report and subsequently in the House of Lords-so that much more careful consideration can be given, however useful this debate has been, and we are making progress.

David Heath: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who is absolutely right. The purpose of the wording is indeed to muddy the waters and to make things more difficult to adjudicate. However, I question the appropriateness of the provision being included at all, in that if the whole point is to restore to this House the right to decide whether a treaty is appropriate, it seems quite perverse then to say, But if the Minister doesn't like that decision, he can simply carry on presenting the treaty to the House, through a long process of attrition, until eventually there aren't enough people here or people of the right persuasion are here and the treaty can get through. That is not what should be in clause 24.
	The other expression that I would like the Minister to explain is the one that was touched on in our first debate in Committee this afternoon. Clause 24(1)(b) refers to the treaty having been published
	in a way that a Minister of the Crown thinks appropriate.
	I just do not know what that means or why it has been included. I assume that a treaty will be published in the form in which it was signed, not in a way that a Minister thinks it appropriate for people to read. The only, very small explanation that I can conceive of is that if the treaty was signed in another language, it might be appropriate for the Minister concerned to publish it in English, for the benefit of this House and the wider British public. However, beyond that simple matter of translation, I do not understand what the Minister has in mind by insisting that a treaty can be published in a way that a Minister thinks appropriate, rather than in the form in which it was signed, in whatever proceedings led to its being agreed. I would like the Minister to explain what is intended by that phrase, because clearly somebody has something in mind that is not obvious from a simple reading of it.

Richard Shepherd: I am grateful to the hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth) for tabling the amendments. What he is trying to accomplish is in the spirit of what the Prime Minister sought to do in his early works, on those bright, happy days of two years ago-to see a shift in the balance of power, to restore Parliament. That was the intent behind what the Prime Minister said, and I do not doubt that that was what he had in mind, in those brief moments of joy.
	However, in our constitutional arrangements and our system of government-I have reflected on this issue over many years, and it is common to more than just one Government or another-there is the concept of the Crown. From that emanates the concept of prerogative powers and the accretion of the governance of the United Kingdom. Ministers sometimes stand in this Chamber and endeavour from those concepts of the Crown to shift the great ship of state, and yet when we see the words produced by the machinery of government for those Ministers, who operate as the Crown, we see that intent become a weaker note-they do not accomplish what we understood from the brave words set out in The Governance of Britain or from those of the Secretary of State for Justice, the Home Secretary or the Prime Minister.
	Why should we not vote? Why should that not be the automatic response on something that can affect the lives of citizens? My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg) made the good point that the extradition treaty to which he referred was essentially negotiated in secrecy. We did not understand the intent and purpose behind it as we would have liked. We have been through the Lisbon process-the signing was an act of the Crown, but we had to legislate for it, because our dualist system for dealing with treaties makes it necessary to translate them into statute law for this country. That is what we have to do. However, the proposition in the Bill makes no such allowance. What the hon. Member for Cambridge and the Liberal Democrats have proposed and what my right hon. and learned Friend had to say were very well put. I have always believed that the presumption should be that laws can be made and treaties entered into only with the consent of the people as expressed through this Chamber. What is written in the Bill does not ensure that.

Chris Bryant: indicated dissent.

Richard Shepherd: No, it does not. The decision is really at the discretion of Ministers. The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) pointed out where clause 24 says that, notwithstanding the delay in the process, the Government can effectively go ahead and ratify.

Chris Bryant: Honestly, the clause does not allow that. The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome first seemed to suggest that the Government could just override the House of Commons, but the second time that he made the point he correctly said although the Government may bring the treaty back, it would still require the consent of the Commons.

Richard Shepherd: All right; I will accept that point, but that was not my understanding of subsection (4), which I thought was quite clear. It says:
	The treaty may be ratified if-
	(a) a Minister of the Crown has laid before Parliament a statement indicating that the Minister is of the opinion that the treaty should nevertheless be ratified and explaining why, and
	(b) period B has expired without the House of Commons having resolved, within period B, that the treaty should not be ratified.
	I was lost in the language.

David Howarth: The language of that subsection seems clear to me: the Commons has to resolve again, in period B, not to ratify the treaty if it is to prevent ratification. However, subsection (6) says:
	A statement may be laid under subsection (4)(a) in relation to the treaty on more than one occasion,
	so the Government can just go through the process again, and can keep on doing so until the Commons gives up.  [Interruption.]

Richard Shepherd: But we wanted more than how it is now; that is the point. I was rolling on to the point that it is essential that we have a vote on the amendments that we are discussing, so that the House of Lords will know that the House of Commons stumbled or fought, and will know that we thought that the issue was important and needed to be discussed without the pressure of a guillotine.

Douglas Hogg: May I suggest to my hon. Friend that his point has ever greater force if one bears in mind what the Minister said about the consultation held on the treaty powers, in which, apparently, no question was raised on clause 24? If that is right-I am sure that the Minister was telling us what he thought was correct-this is the first occasion on which right hon. and hon. Members, and others, have really expressed anxiety about the proposals in clause 24.

Richard Shepherd: I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend. As he will know well, the issue of when papers or documents are laid before the House is, again, at the discretion of the Executive. Many a time, important measures-those in statutory instruments, for instance-have been laid before Parliament on the very day on which the House rises for a recess. My fear as regards treaties, given the provision on 21 days and all the rest of it, is that we will not appreciate what is happening. Just before the summer recess, no one-or only some of us, sometimes-is alert and alive to what is happening.
	In fact, on our expenses, I remember the redaction agreement that was reached on the Floor of the House of Commons; it was interpreted by the Secretary of State for Justice in such a way as to bring the House into disrepute. That statutory instrument was laid before the House on the very day on which Parliament rose for the summer. Perhaps I am conflating too many issues, including intent and the way in which the Government operate, but that is how they have operated.

David Heath: To support the hon. Gentleman's contention, we know that the Bill does not set out a time period between the signature of a treaty and its being laid before Parliament and triggering the 21 days, so the Government can lay the treaty before Parliament at their convenience and discretion. The Minister boasted earlier that the UK-US extradition treaty was signed in March and kept absolutely secret until May, two months later, when the Government tried to sneak it through the House.

Richard Shepherd: Absolutely. I was there, and I know that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham was there. We watched the proceedings, and the construction of what followed, with some bemusement; we have seen the difficulties in which the treaty has placed Home Secretaries, and have seen that it raises questions of equity.
	The reason why I rose to speak, Sir Nicholas-sorry, Mr. Lord.  [Interruption.] I mean, Sir Michael; we will have a gamut of titles before we are finished. I rose not only to support the amendments, but to agree with the contention of my right hon. and learned Friend that it is necessary to establish, by expressing a view on the Floor of this House, that the matter is one that the House of Lords should look at most carefully.

Sammy Wilson: In debate on the clause we have seen that, despite the high principles set out in the consultation paper, the Green Paper and the White Paper, and the promises to the Joint Committee on the draft Constitutional Renewal Bill, if we actually examine the detail in the Bill we see that the powers that the House will have to stop the ratification of a treaty fall far short of the ideals that were promised at the start.
	Members have outlined clearly the importance of international treaties and their impact on the lives of individuals in the United Kingdom. We want, and should have, proper scrutiny of the laws that we pass in this House, and so it should be with international treaties. However, let us look at what is in the Bill. As the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) pointed out, the treaty will be
	published in a way that a Minister of the Crown thinks appropriate.
	The Minister may well explain what that means later, but if we take that at face value, immediately we see that if a Minister wants to push a treaty through, or ratify a treaty that people have some reluctance about, the provisions relating to how it is written up and presented will make it possible for the House not to have all the information.
	Secondly, the Bill requires a treaty to be put before the House, but the negative procedure is used. In other words, people will actively have to decide whether a treaty is sufficiently important, even though it may have been presented in a way that the Minister thinks appropriate, which may not alert people to the full implications of the treaty. Someone has to undertake an activity to bring the matter before the House in the first place.

Douglas Hogg: May I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that there is a further problem? The negative procedure can, generally speaking, be triggered only by Front Benchers. If they think that the negative procedure is not required, that excludes the ability of Back Benchers to object to the treaty, whereas the affirmative procedure enables everybody to play a part, if the treaty is brought to the Floor of the House.

Sammy Wilson: I thank the right hon. and learned Gentleman for that intervention, which was very useful. If a full role is to be played by all Members of the House, and not just the Front Benchers, the negative procedure is not a satisfactory way forward. The Government have the opportunity to present the treaty as they wish, and the negative procedure is to be used, but if the Government still do not like the outcome, subsection (4) allows the Minister to have another go at it, and to say, Despite what I've heard, I still think you're wrong. There is then a further period in which the treaty can be looked at. As has been pointed out, if he gets the wrong answer again, he can bring the treaty forward time and again, until attrition or weariness means that the Government get their way. Is that what is meant by giving the House a greater say on international treaties? It falls short of what we would want, ideally. The easy way round that is to support the amendment requiring treaties to be subject to the affirmative procedure.

William Cash: I simply want to come back to the question of signing, as compared to ratifying, the treaty. All our discussions have revolved around assumptions to do with the word ratification in the clause. However much progress is being made towards a general objective, we have not yet dealt with the question of whether, in light of the Government's apparent intentions, it would be preferable-I would be interested to hear what the Minister has to say about this-to relate the entire process to signature rather than ratification. Article 11 of the Vienna convention lists various ways in which a state can express its consent to be bound. These include signature, exchange of instruments constituting a treaty and, among others, ratification, acceptance or approval. I do not want to turn this intervention into a speech, but I must point out that it is terribly important, if we are to get this right, to link consent to signature rather than to ratification in this context.

Sammy Wilson: I know that the hon. Gentleman has tabled an amendment on this matter. I take his point, and I would be quite happy to see the provision relate to signature rather than ratification.
	Adopting the affirmative resolution procedure in this process, as the amendment proposes, would remove many of the objections that I have raised. The only argument that I have heard against doing so is that it would take up far too much time. It has been pointed out by the hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth) who moved the amendment, however, that not every treaty would have to have extensive debate in the House. Furthermore, the Minister has said that there are not that many treaties anyway. He mentioned an average of only 30 a year. So the contention that dealing with every treaty using the affirmative resolution procedure would take up too much time does not seem to have been effectively argued in the Minister's responses so far. For that reason, if the matter is pressed to a Division, I shall certainly vote to enable the House to have a say on every treaty that the Government bring forward.

Chris Bryant: I should like to make one preliminary remark. The right hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg) referred to the question of whether Governments were of good faith or not. I think that it is an assumption in this House that all Members are people of good faith.
	There has been an excess of suspicious minds on this clause today. We are intent on ensuring that more of the power that has thus far resided with the royal prerogative is transferred to Parliament. That is the bottom line.

Douglas Hogg: I am making absolutely no criticism of the hon. Gentleman, but it is a very dangerous assumption that all Governments comprise people of good faith at all times. One must actually assume the contrary.

Chris Bryant: I-

Dominic Grieve: I have no reason to doubt what the Minister says, but he will have to concentrate on the point that the Government's intentions, as set out in the Bill, do not necessarily marry up with the Standing Orders of the House. The Government might not therefore be able to deliver what they appear to be promising in the clause.

Chris Bryant: I hope that I shall be able to satisfy the hon. and learned Gentleman on that matter.
	I shall deal with some of the smaller issues that some hon. Members have raised in what I described as a somewhat over-suspicious manner. Attention has been drawn to the words
	in a way that a Minister of the Crown thinks appropriate.
	This simply means that one could publish a treaty as a Command Paper, or by depositing it in the Library of the House. Equally, one could publish it on the Order Paper, or as a White Paper. There is no way in which a treaty could be published in a way that was secretive, or designed to mislead the House. These are simply the customary words-they are used in many other pieces of legislation as well-that allow Ministers to decide whether a Command Paper or a White Paper is appropriate. I am certain of that.
	It will be sad when the hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth) is no longer a Member of this House. He has done a great service to the House in many ways. He raised the question of whether the affirmative resolution procedure should be used in both Houses. My own suspicion is that that would be too cumbersome for the two Houses. The process that is used in the House of Lords is somewhat different from what happens in this Chamber.
	The hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) pointed out that there are many different kinds of treaty. The vast majority of them are very technical and relatively minor, and they do not detain or concern the House very often. It should not be for the Government to decide which do and which do not, however. It should be for the House to decide which treaties it wants to investigate, debate and vote on. We would absolutely guarantee that a motion would be debated and voted on, if the House so wished. The question was asked earlier: who is the House, in this context? If Members-whether Front Benchers or Back Benchers-sought to debate a motion, the Government would ensure that there was a debate within the time. The other thing that the Government could do is extend the time.

Douglas Hogg: The concept of the Government responding to individual Back Benchers demanding a debate and a vote is a new one. What would Back Benchers have to do to achieve such success?

Chris Bryant: They would have to ask for it.
	A couple of hon. Members referred to the 21-day period. The hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd), who is not in his place at the moment, said that the material might be tabled on the last day before a recess. Actually, one of the provisions in the clause has not been mentioned. At present the Ponsonby rule applies only to days when either House is sitting, whereas under our proposal, the term sitting day would mean a day on which both Houses are sitting. That will effectively extend the period of time available. This is in response to one of the Committees that examined the Public Administration Committee's report on the draft Bill. We have sought to extend the period in that way.

William Cash: On the question of determining which documents are important and which are not-be they treaties or treaty-like instruments-will the Minister tell us whether the term written agreement is wide enough to cover that? Also, under the conventions relating to the Ponsonby rule, it has been open to the Government since 2001 to refer treaties to departmental Select Committees, and they normally do. It is at that point that some of the problems of categorisation could arise. A departmental Select Committee could decide that a treaty was important and ought to be debated and voted on. The crucial question is not merely whether we have a debate on a take note motion, but whether we have a substantive motion on which a vote can take place. Those are areas that require further clarification, are they not?

Chris Bryant: The hon. Gentleman is right to say that if there is a desire for a vote, there has to be a vote on a substantive motion. If such a motion were to fall, the Government could, as the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) has pointed out, try to bring the issue back to the House. My suspicion, however, is that the politics of the moment would probably determine that if a Government had lost, in the House of Commons, a treaty that they had signed, there would be a real danger that the Government would fall-although that is not what happened to President Wilson when he lost the Versailles treaty in the United States of America. That situation was rather different, of course, because the Executive there are completely separate from the legislature. None the less, it is pretty unlikely that Governments would want to continue to bring such a matter back again and again.

David Howarth: That raises an obvious question. Why do the Government think that this particular provision is at all desirable or necessary?

Chris Bryant: Because there would be circumstances in which one would want to return to such an issue. It will be a political judgment for the Government. They may decide No, it's clearly dead; we'll have to leave it, but in other circumstances they may believe that it is in the interest of national security, or whatever, to return to the issue and try to make the argument again. The key point is that the Government would not be able to proceed without the House of Commons having either voted in favour or decided to let the matter rest.

Dominic Grieve: Can the Minister identify any matter on which the Government may currently be defeated which they cannot bring back before the House at their discretion?

Chris Bryant: No. The hon. and learned Gentleman makes a good point.
	As for my saying that it did not matter that the clause had not been raised in general public consultation, several matters were raised, and there has been a Joint Committee on the Bill, which broadly agreed with the provisions in the clause. It felt that the previous version had not been properly drafted, which is why we redrafted the provisions this time, and we believe that we have made them clearer.

Douglas Hogg: If I did not say this earlier I apologise, but the point that I wanted to make is that the Minister said that no criticism had been made of clause 24, yet this is the opportunity for us to make criticism, and the other place needs to know about the fact of our criticism.

Chris Bryant: Well, some criticism has been made, so let me clarify that: there have been previous debates on this matter.
	The hon. Member for Stone asked why the procedures do not apply to treaty-like documents, and he referred to memorandums of understanding. Such procedures would apply to such memorandums if they were legally binding in international law, but memorandums of understanding are not legally binding in international law, which is why those procedures do not apply. That is the clear distinction that we are trying to draw here.
	The hon. Gentleman is right to say that there are some circumstances in which we have to enact certain elements of a treaty before ratification, in order to bring ourselves into line with it. On other occasions we have already substantially legislated in the field, so there is no need for further legislation and the only process left is approval followed by ratification. There are a few instances where ratification happens by virtue of signature, mainly in cases where negotiation is developing fast so that revealing the Government's hand in public-in the UK and therefore to the wider world-would undermine our negotiating stance with another Government. There is, I think, an element of wanting to maintain that distinction.
	I hope that I have reassured the House that the Commons would always have the right of veto, should it choose to implement it. The Government would always make sure that where a debate and vote were requested, they would be made available within the allotted time-or if they were not, we would extend the time in order to allow that provision.

William Cash: rose-

Chris Bryant: I am minded not to give way, if the hon. Gentleman does not mind.

William Cash: rose-

Chris Bryant: No, I am not giving way, as we have already had quite a lengthy debate.  [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Rayleigh (Mr. Francois) is sighing at me, but he was not here and he did not listen to my response to his party's questions. Without further ado, I urge the Committee to reject the amendment and to carry the clause.

David Howarth: We have had a good debate, and I thank the Minister for his kind remarks. A series of interesting points have been raised about a wide range of issues. I do not want to go through all of them. I am particularly grateful to the right hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg) for his suggestions about how to develop further the proposals on which treaties should or should not be debated in the House, but the proposal before us now-amendment 1-is simply to reverse the negative procedure and introduce the affirmative procedure as the default option, and as the fundamental way in which this House deals with treaties.

Dominic Grieve: I have had the opportunity of listening to the Minister, and although I do not doubt his sincerity, it seems to me that he has not provided an explanation of how Standing Orders can enable the House to consider a negative resolution against a Government who do not wish to provide one. I believe that that is a serious flaw that needs to be addressed and will have to be looked at further in the context of the Bill, even though I support a negative resolution in principle.

David Howarth: I thank the hon. and learned Gentleman. That is the core of the problem with the negative procedure.
	The Government's defence has two aspects. First, the procedure is said to be cumbersome, but the response to that point was provided by the hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson). The Government have said that there are only 30 treaties a year, and that they will be dealt with in fundamentally the same way as we deal with affirmative resolutions for statutory instruments, of which we deal with several a day-there is one about income tax on the Order Paper today-so this does not seem to be at all a good point for the Government to make. The procedure is not cumbersome in the least.
	For the second part of the Government's defence, the Minister gave a guarantee that in certain circumstances, if complaints were made about a treaty on the Floor of the House, the Government would use their power over the agenda of the House to make sure that a debate and a vote took place. The trouble with that defence is that it was later reduced to absurdity when the Minister said that he would accede even to the requests of Back Benchers, which immediately starts to contradict his first point. If anything would be cumbersome, it would be a system under which any Back Bencher could get 90 minutes on the Floor of the House any time they wanted to complain about something. I am afraid that that part of the defence does not work either.
	It seemed to me that the Minister was thrown back on to what might be called the good chap theory of the constitution-that we are all good chaps together and no one will exploit the power that this particular way of implementing intentions gives the Government. I am afraid that it is too late for the good chap theory of the constitution. If the whole purpose of the clause, and this part of the Bill, is to transfer power from the Government to Parliament, that transfer itself must be part of the Bill. What the Government cannot do is transfer a little bit so that the proposal does not work in reality-even though one wants it to work-and then say that otherwise Parliament can rely on the Government's good will. That is precisely the form of Government that we are trying to move away from; it relies on the use of the very prerogative that we are trying to undermine.

William Cash: Does the hon. Gentleman accept the central idea-I put it to the Minister, but he would not take the point-that to get the objectives right, it is signature rather than ratification that we need to get right, because under the UK constitutional arrangements ratification tends to take place at the end of the procedure?

David Howarth: I think that the hon. Gentleman is half right. I agree that it would be a good idea to develop proposals to deal with signature, but that does not mean that ratification is irrelevant; indeed, I think it is very important.
	To return to the central issue of the Government's control over the House, that is precisely what makes clause 24 ineffective as a way of transferring power. If the Wright Committee's proposals were to be accepted by the Government, that situation might change. Unfortunately, however, we have no sign yet that the Government intend to bring those proposals to the Floor of the House and accept them in full. At this point, if the Minister would like to spring to his feet to contradict me, I would be grateful-but I would also be surprised. In the absence of any guarantees to change the House's procedure, the point still stands that the negative procedure achieves very little, if anything. On that basis, I shall press amendment 1 to the vote.

Question put, That the amendment be made.
	 The House divided: Ayes 232, Noes 277.

Question accordingly negatived.

Mark Francois: I beg to move amendment 125, page 12, line 42, at end insert-
	'(1A) In the case of treaties which transfer competences from the United Kingdom Parliament to the European Union-
	(a) subsection (1)(c) shall not apply,
	(b) the procedure set out in new Clause [Referendum on Treaties which transfer competences to the EU] shall apply.'.

Michael Lord: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: amendment 126, in clause 27, page 14, line 10, after '(1)', insert
	'Save as provided for in section 24(1A),'.
	Amendment 127, in clause 26, page 13, line 39, at end insert
	'or if the treaty transfers competences from the United Kingdom Parliament to the European Union.'.
	Amendment 128, in clause 28, page 14, line 44, at end add-
	'(5) In this Part, competences means areas of supplementary, shared or exclusive jurisdiction.'.
	New clause 68- Referendum on treaties which transfer competences to the EU-
	'(1) This section shall apply in the case of a treaty which transfers competences from the United Kingdom Parliament to the European Union.
	(2) A referendum shall be held throughout the United Kingdom and Gibraltar on the day specified by a Minister of the Crown.
	(3) The question to be asked in the referendum is whether the British people approve the ratification of the treaty, Yes or No.
	(4) A person is entitled to vote in the referendum if, on the day it is held, he is-
	(a) an individual who would be entitled to vote as an elector at a parliamentary election in a constituency in the United Kingdom;
	(b) a peer who would be entitled to vote as an elector at a local government election in an electoral area in Great Britain or at a local election in an electoral area in Northern Ireland; or
	(c) a Commonwealth citizen who would be entitled to vote in Gibraltar as an elector at a European Parliamentary election.
	(5) A Minister of the Crown may by order make provision in relation to the referendum which-
	(a) determines the referendum period for the purposes of Part 7 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 (c.41); and
	(b) requires ballot papers to be used by voters in Wales, after having set out the question and the possible answers in English, to set them out again, with equal prominence, in Welsh.
	(c) makes provisions as to the conduct of the referendum, entitlement to vote in the referendum and legal challenge to the referendum result.
	(6) Every power of a Minister of the Crown to make an order under this section shall be exercisable by statutory instrument.
	(7) An order under this section may be made only if a draft of the order has been-
	(a) laid before Parliament; and
	(b) approved by resolution of each House.
	(8) A treaty subject to Section 24, (1A) can come in to force in accordance with provisions made by the Secretary of State by order made by Statutory Instrument provided-
	(a) the Chief Counting Officer has given a certificate under section 128(6) of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 (c.41) certifying the outcome of the referendum; and
	(b) the total number of votes certified as cast in favour of the answer Yes exceeds the total number certified as cast in favour of the answer No.'.

Mark Francois: These amendments and new clause 68 would ensure that any future treaty that transferred areas of power or competences from the United Kingdom Parliament to the European Union would require the consent of the British people in a referendum as a condition of its ratification. This referendum lock would give the British people the final say on whether they wish this Parliament to hand over further areas of power to the European Union. This is a right similar to the one that voters of the Republic of Ireland already enjoy under their constitution.

Phil Willis: The following point is crucial to these amendments and new clause 68. Will the hon. Gentleman give a cast-iron assurance that if his party forms the next Government, this will be part of their legislative programme in their first term-yes or no?

Mark Francois: We are seeking to make it an assurance tonight by amending this Bill here and now.

Edward Davey: Answer the question.

Mark Francois: I will answer in my own way. I very much hope that the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis) will support us in the Lobby this evening in order to amend the law tonight. If we were not to succeed tonight, we would, as I shall discuss later in my speech, then amend the law if we were to form an incoming Conservative Government. He will have an opportunity to support us in the Lobby tonight.
	Part 2 of the Bill also seeks to give the Government a get-out clause to ratify treaties in exceptional circumstances without allowing for detailed parliamentary scrutiny and approval. Our associated amendments 126 and 127 would, in effect, disapply the special exemptions that the Government have granted themselves in the Bill to ratify treaties, so that they could not apply to any treaty that transfers further powers from this Parliament to the European Union.

Nicholas Soames: On that very important point, will my hon. Friend define for me what he means by competences?

Mark Francois: Yes. If my hon. Friend looks at the amendment paper, he will see that we have attempted to do that in amendment 128.

Edward Leigh: My hon. Friend mentioned the Irish constitution, whose guarantee is a cast-iron one, because it is part of a constitution that is almost impossible to change. In our case, a Conservative Government could have a referendum just because they wished to do so, but a Labour Government would not have to hold a referendum. What does the amendment mean?

Mark Francois: By putting in this referendum lock, the amendment means that if ever there were a future treaty that transferred powers from Britain to the EU, there would have to be a referendum. We are committed to that, which is why we are moving the amendment on the referendum tonight. To return to the point made by the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough, if we were not to succeed tonight and if we were victorious at the general election, we would amend the legislation as an incoming Conservative Government in order to achieve a referendum lock. I hope that that is very clear. What the House will want to know this evening is whether the Labour party and the Liberal Democrats support a referendum lock, which is what we are proposing tonight. I hope that that provides a clear answer for my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh). We shall wait to see what Labour and the Liberal Democrats do in the Division Lobby.

Keith Vaz: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mark Francois: I would like to make just one more paragraph's-worth of progress and then I shall give way to the right hon. Gentleman, as he is a former Minister for Europe.
	We do not believe it is right that treaties relating to the EU should be specifically exempted from parliamentary scrutiny, so we have tabled amendments 126 and 127, which seek to undo the loopholes that the Government have introduced in the Bill and to ensure that a future Government cannot avoid giving the British people their say. On that point, I shall give way to the right hon. Gentleman.

Keith Vaz: I am not, in principle, against the idea of referendums relating to the European Union; in fact, I am on record as saying that I think we ought to have an all-singing, all-dancing referendum on membership of the European Union. However, may I just ask the hon. Gentleman how many of the treaties that have been passed in the past 20 years does he think would have needed to be the subject of a referendum?

Mark Francois: I understand the question that I am being asked.

Chris Bryant: Good.

Mark Francois: Thank you. Our amendment proposes that if ever there were a future treaty that transferred powers, a referendum would have to be held. As the right hon. Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz) knows, we argued very hard for a referendum on the Lisbon treaty. I do not wish to pre-empt the debate, Sir Michael, but I have a funny feeling that that may yet crop up again once or twice in the next few minutes.

William Cash: rose-

Mark Francois: Absolutely bang on cue.

William Cash: This amendment has, of course, been tabled by our Front Benchers and my hon. Friend will, I am sure, understand that references to the transfer of future competences are, in the opinion of some of us, including myself, simply not enough. We need to ensure that we repatriate economic competitiveness, for example, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) said that we must in his speech to the Centre for Policy Studies in 2005. Will my hon. Friend clarify the difference between what my right hon. Friend said then and what is being said now in the most recent speech on Europe, which is that we want to repatriate that competitiveness?

Mark Francois: As my hon. Friend will know, I am talking now about an amendment that concerns future treaties. I do not propose, although my hon. Friend tempts me to do so, to go into long debate about the changes for which we have asked on how the Lisbon treaty will apply in the UK post-ratification. I hope, Sir Michael, that you will understand why I will not go down that route this evening. I want to focus on this amendment. The commitment given by my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) definitely still stands.
	The last major ratification of a European treaty was that of the Lisbon treaty. During debates on the treaty, Conservative Members of Parliament kept their manifesto promise and voted for a referendum. Unfortunately, with a few honourable exceptions, the Labour party and the Liberal Democrats did not.
	My party believes that the British people should be given the last word on any future transfers of power from the UK to the EU, so I challenge the Labour party and the Liberal Democrats to have equal trust in the British people and to support this amendment tonight. Before they vote, I would also ask them to consider the following. If they vote against the amendment, they will be voting against giving the British people a say on any future handover of power to the EU and people will rightly ask why. Their most likely conclusion will be that Labour and the Liberal Democrats, once again, mean to sign new treaties handing powers over from Britain to the European Union without consulting the voters, as they have conspired to do in the past. If that is what they plan to do, we will be happy to inform voters of their intentions at the imminent general election.
	I am, as ever, particularly curious about the position of the Liberal Democrats. They have so many that one is entitled to be curious about them. Let us take a look at one of them. At the 2005 Liberal Democrat party conference, the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Clegg) proposed a conference motion, seconded by the hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable), no less, that stated the following:
	Any proposals which involve significant change in the relationship between the Union, the member states and its citizens should be approved in Britain through a referendum.
	That is essentially what these amendments would accomplish, so it would be an act of extraordinary inconsistency if the right hon. and hon. Gentlemen did not support them, and if their colleagues in the Liberal Democrats did not do so, either.
	Liberal Democrat spokesmen are well practised at explaining away extraordinary inconsistencies, so I look forward with interest to hearing what the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) has to say.

Phil Willis: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mark Francois: Right on cue, another one of them bobs up.

Phil Willis: As we are talking about inconsistencies-and it is important to recognise that my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) will give a robust defence to the questions that the hon. Member for Rayleigh (Mr. Francois) has rightly posed-does the hon. Gentleman not find it inconsistent for the Conservative party to give a cast-iron guarantee about the Lisbon treaty and for it now to display this wriggling when talking about the future? He and his party gave a cast-iron guarantee that they would ensure that the people would be able to have a vote, but there is now no guarantee that if the Conservative party came into power it would do anything about the Lisbon treaty, the Maastricht treaty or any other piece of legislation. That is a betrayal of the British people and of the hon. Gentleman's party.

Mark Francois: I think that that was more of a rant than an intervention. This is a guarantee that would be enshrined in statute, and that is why it would be so important. The hon. Gentleman knows full well that we campaigned for a referendum on the Lisbon treaty. We argued for that referendum in this House and we voted for it in this House. If the Liberal Democrats had kept to their manifesto promise, as we did, and had voted with us in the Lobby, there were enough Labour rebels to have delivered that referendum. The Liberal Democrats know what they did in abstaining on that point and in conspiring with the Government to prevent a referendum on Lisbon, so we shall take no lessons whatsoever from those on their Benches about desires for a referendum. Let me make that very clear.
	Importantly, these amendments and the associated new clause seek to help restore the British people's trust in politics by ensuring that any future treaty that transfers powers to the European Union at the expense of the UK Parliament must be put to the British people in a referendum.

Douglas Hogg: One of the difficulties that will always arise is the question of how one compels a Government to do that. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is probably the case that if a Government refused to hold a referendum, a citizen could go to the courts under judicial review and get an order requiring the Government to do it? That is the safeguard, and it is a considerable one for the citizenry as a whole.

Mark Francois: If a Government had enshrined in law the guarantee that any future transfer of powers in a treaty would be put to the British people in a referendum-if that had been put on the statute book-and if such a treaty was introduced and an individual felt that the Government were trying to wriggle out of their referendum commitments, that individual would have recourse to law in the courts. My right hon. and learned Friend makes an important point. That would help to give this amendment teeth and it is all the more important, therefore, to put it on the statute book.

Edward Davey: Will the hon. Gentleman explain the difference between a statutory protection and a constitutional protection? It seems to me that a statutory protection such as that which he and his hon. Friends wish to introduce could be overturned by a Government, who could change the law. It therefore cannot be said to be enshrined and cannot be a lock, as he is trying to suggest.

Mark Francois: Given what has happened in the past few years, if this provision were to be put into law and a Government attempted to remove the provision, I think that the British people's reaction would be very severe. I throw that question back to the hon. Gentleman, and I shall listen carefully to what he has to say in his speech. As we want to try to amend the law tonight, I want to hear him say that the Liberal Democrats support the amendment and that they will never seek to overturn it. I want to hear that from the Minister, too, given what has happened in our country in the last couple of years and given the need to restore public trust in politics. I always listen to speeches made by the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton very carefully, but I shall listen with especial care tonight to see whether he will give, on behalf of his party, a commitment that his party would support the amendment and, if it is passed, that they would never seek to overturn it.

Edward Davey: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mark Francois: I have just given way to the hon. Gentleman, and I shall listen carefully to his speech. I hope that he, in turn, will give way to me.
	If these amendments are not passed today-this brings me back to the earlier question asked from the Liberal Democrat Benches by the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough-an incoming Conservative Government would introduce their own legislation by amending the European Communities Act 1972 to ensure that this referendum lock is enshrined in law. Nevertheless, I commend the amendment to the House and hope that the Liberal Democrats and the Labour party will join us in voting for it, thus helping to restore, in some part at least, trust in politics among the British people.

Keith Vaz: I shall speak only briefly in this debate, because I know that any discussion on the European Union attracts a huge amount of interest, not just from the usual suspects but from those outside the House as it is, obviously, one of the most interesting aspects, in my view, of Government policy. I would like to see more debates on the European Union and much more scrutiny of such issues on the Floor of the House of Commons. I would also like to ensure that the European Scrutiny Committee can bring its reports to the Floor of the House on its own motion, allowing Members of the House to discuss the facts, as opposed to the myths, about the European Union.
	I have some sympathy with the remarks of the shadow Minister for Europe, but we need clarity about what he means in respect of the transfer of powers. There is a consensus among all the parties in the House that we are better off in the European Union than outside it. I am not sure whether that applies to the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash), but the Front-Bench teams of all political parties are united in the belief that the future of this country remains within the European Union.
	In order to convince me to support him, because I am with the Government on the amendment, the hon. Member for Rayleigh (Mr. Francois) must tell us two things. First, who is to be the final arbiter of whether powers have been transferred? As with most things to do with Europe, facts are put to one side and the issue becomes a matter of opinion. The Conservative party takes a principled stand. It has said that the Lisbon treaty entails a massive transfer of powers, so there ought to be a referendum. The Government's position has been different. Their view is that the treaty is codifying, there are no new powers and therefore, in trying to tidy up and improve the operation of the European Union, there is no need for a referendum.

Douglas Hogg: May I suggest that the answer to the right hon. Gentleman's question is that in the first instance, it is a matter for a political decision whether the competences transferred are sufficient in scale to justify a referendum? But if the Government declined to hold a referendum, as I said in my intervention, a citizen could go to the courts. It would then be for the courts to determine whether the circumstances that have arisen within the treaty are sufficient to require a referendum. Ultimately, it would be a matter for the British courts.

Keith Vaz: That is an interesting point. I am not sure that we heard it necessarily from the Front Bench. I know that the right hon. and learned Gentleman, a most distinguished lawyer and Member of the House who, sadly, is standing down at the next election, has suggested a way forward, but I, as a representative of my constituents, would not want constant referrals to the courts or constant applications to the High Court and then to the new Supreme Court on the issue. That would paralyse Government policy. Whichever Government were in office, that would not be the best way of dealing efficiently with a matter of such importance.

William Cash: I do not agree that the matter would be best dealt with by the courts, not least because of declaration 17, which is annexed to the Lisbon treaty. It gives guidance to the courts with regard to the question of primacy of European law not only over our laws, but over our law-making, our constitution and this Parliament. I have not the slightest interest in transferring to the Supreme Court of this country decisions on the question in that environment. We need a United Kingdom Parliamentary Sovereignty Bill such as I introduced only last week.

Keith Vaz: That is exactly the problem that we face: two distinguished lawyers, a Queen's Counsel and a former shadow Attorney-General for the Conservative party, disagreeing as to whether the courts should be involved. That is in a short debate in the House. One can imagine what would happen if every citizen had the right to make an application to the courts. Our court system would be log-jammed, the Government's policy would be held in abeyance, and the whole European Union would probably not be able to operate. That is why we have such a problem deciding what to do about the issue.

Edward Leigh: The right hon. Gentleman is making a very good speech and I agree with much of it. The problem is to determine whether significant powers have been transferred. For instance, if Croatia joins, there may well be an accession treaty. It could be argued that some powers were being transferred. Ultimately, the matter will depend on the courts. We have no tradition in this country of a Supreme Court making political judgments. It could be very dangerous.

Keith Vaz: I agree. That is the problem with the solution on offer. We need to determine the circumstances in which a competent authority can say that powers have been transferred. For various reasons, party political points will always be made when we discuss Europe. I agree that there are divisions in all the major political parties. I am not sure that there are any divisions in the Liberal Democrat party on Europe, but there certainly are in the Labour party. There is a small minority in the Labour party who believe that we should not be in Europe at all, and I think that applies to the Conservative party as well. We need to find out, and the hon. Member for Rayleigh will convince me to support him, if he has a formula that will allow us to make that first decision.

David Winnick: Is there a certain irony here? If the argument is that power from the House has been transferred in part to the EU-to some extent, obviously, it has-what would be the logic of transferring further powers from the House to the courts? That has not happened before and, in my view, as a humble Member of the House, would be totally unacceptable.

Keith Vaz: My hon. Friend is being very modest in describing himself as a humble Member of the House. He probably has more experience of the House than all of us put together, in terms of length of membership of the House. He is right-

Chris Bryant: He is not that old.

Keith Vaz: But he is that distinguished.
	At the end of the day, we want to make the decision on the extent of the transfer of powers.

John Hemming: On the question of how a decision is made, I have some sympathy with the proposal from the Conservatives, but they miss certain aspects. Perhaps we should develop a constitutional court to examine the issue and identify which legislation is constitutional in nature and should require a referendum for it to be changed.

Keith Vaz: I think the hon. Gentleman would find that the cry from the Benches would be, Too many courts and too many lawyers already involved in these issues. It is a matter for Parliament and politicians to decide in the end. That is the problem that I have with the proposition from the hon. Member for Rayleigh.
	Secondly, the hon. Gentleman did not answer the question that I put to him. Suppose we accepted his formula on the transfer of powers. We have had quite a few treaties in the past 20 years. We did not have a referendum on Maastricht. I am not sure whether the Conservative party has revisited its history and believes that we ought to have had a referendum on Maastricht.
	I cannot hold the hon. Member for Rayleigh responsible because he was not in the House at that time, but the right hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg) was in the Cabinet at that time- [Interruption.] He was a Minister of State. At any rate, he was in the Government. We did not have a referendum over Maastricht, and none of the other treaties that we have had in the past 20 years have come anywhere near the transfer of powers in that. If that treaty did not satisfy the criteria, how would any other treaty do so?

William Cash: I instigated the Maastricht referendum campaign, which got more than 500,000 signatures on the petition to Parliament for such a referendum. Of course I believe that there should have been one. The Conservative party, apart from three Members, was united on the entire Lisbon treaty. As a consolidating treaty, that is more important than Maastricht because it takes the process of integration, plus primacy, so much further. It is a lethal treaty and should have been subject to a referendum. It is a disgrace that the Government did not hold one.

Keith Vaz: That is the principled view of the hon. Gentleman. He has always held that view, not just about the Lisbon treaty, but about every statutory instrument and every motion to do with Europe that has ever come before the House. It is always a disgrace, always the thin end of the wedge, and must therefore be opposed.
	On my second point, I should like to know-if not now, perhaps later-how many of those treaties would have passed the test of the hon. Member for Rayleigh. I think he would find that on matters of opinion, quite a few treaties would have passed the test, which would have meant that the country was in a constant state of referendums. If we who were elected to the House pass every decision over to a referendum, there is no point in Parliament or in electing representatives.
	My final point is a question: what are we doing in Europe anyway? I believe that the Conservative party is signed up to the concept of Europe, but of course its members have to oppose everything that the Government propose in that regard. That happens for a variety of reasons, but the fact that there is going to be a general election in the next few weeks means that the official Opposition cannot support the Government on anything but must show principled opposition to everything that the Government put forward.
	That applies most of all to issues involving Europe, but even so I think that the Conservative party is pro-European. Should there be a Conservative victory at the next general election, there is no prospect that a Conservative leader and Cabinet will say that Britain should come out of the EU. There will of course be a lot of mood music and many statements about being very tough with the Europeans in discussions and negotiations, but I have been in this House for 23 years and I know that every British Minister who goes to Brussels does so to speak on behalf of the British people and Parliament. That applies equally to my hon. Friend the current Minister for Europe. No Minister ever goes to Brussels or to the other European cities to hand power over to other people. That has never been the intention of any Government.

Denis MacShane: Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Keith Vaz: I am happy to give way to one of my successors as Minister for Europe.

Denis MacShane: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. Does he agree that every previous Opposition party hoping to win power-the Conservatives in 1970 and 1979, and Labour in 1997-was on the whole pro-European? However, the huge difference now is that the Conservative party has broken off all relations with its sister right-wing parties in Europe. The mood music is important: the Conservatives are not going to pull out of the EU but, if they were ever to win power, they would destroy the chance of Britain-and especially British business-of having any real influence.

Keith Vaz: My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. He speaks with great authority, being the longest serving Europe Minister in the past 13 years. I do not know how many we have had in that time, but we have probably had about seven. However, I know that he is the longest serving-

Mark Francois: I think that it is around a dozen.

Keith Vaz: But my right hon. Friend was the longest serving-

Chris Bryant: So far!

Keith Vaz: So far, absolutely. However, after his stunning performance at the Dispatch Box, I think that that the present Minister for Europe, my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Byrant), will definitely be promoted after the election-unless he can manage to do what some of us have always suggested, which is to ensure that the European portfolio is represented in the Cabinet. That would be the very best way to ensure that we scrutinise what is happening in Europe.
	All the parties need to put their posturing to one side-that is, with the exception of the Liberal Democrats, who have always been very clear about where they stand on the European issue. That is why I believe that it would be a good idea for us to hold one referendum on the question of this country's membership of the EU. We should put the matter to the people once and for all. We have been in the EU for three decades, but let us just put the question to the people so that they can decide whether we should stay in or come out.
	I know that the Foreign Secretary does not like that view, and that it is not shared by the Government, but some of us are so frustrated by the constant sniping about everything European that there may be no other way for the British people to make a final decision on Europe. Despite everything that the Conservative leader has said, I think that he will be sitting on the same platform as the Labour Prime Minister and the leader of the Liberal Democrats, saying that Britain's future is in the European Union.
	It may be that the best way to deal with these European issues is to have better parliamentary scrutiny. I think that I remember Ministers making statements in this House about the need to have more European business on the Floor of the House so that it could be properly scrutinised. The problem is that such business is usually scheduled for Thursday afternoons when a one-line Whip is in operation, which means that attendance is very low. The only people who turn up are those of us who love coming to EU debates, and the Minister and the shadow Minister, who have to come to them.
	Better parliamentary scrutiny of European matters would be a better way to deal with these great issues. I do not think that we should have constant referendums on them. That is not the way forward.

Richard Shepherd: The right hon. Gentleman said that we should have a once-and-for-all referendum, but I remember what the late, lamented Peter Shore had to say about that. As long as there is an England, the issue will never be closed, as it is about national self-government. As long as this country remembers what it is about, the issue will always re-emerge. We govern ourselves.

Keith Vaz: That is absolutely right. Otherwise, what on earth are we doing here discussing these matters at 7.55 on a Tuesday evening? Of course we want to govern ourselves, but the British people ought to have an opportunity to say something about Europe. They have not been allowed to as yet, but people need to be able to position themselves as they wish.

David Winnick: I am very pleased that my right hon. Friend has been so generous with his time, and I am intervening for the second time. I am someone who has modified his view about our membership of the EU. For many years, I have accepted that we belong inside it, and there is no doubt in my mind that coming out would be to Britain's disadvantage. However, my right hon. Friend is one of the most enthusiastic Members of the House of Commons when it comes to Britain's membership of the European Community. Does he agree that there is an obligation on the British Government of the day to see to it that excessive powers are not handed over to the EU? There is a great deal of disquiet among the British general public, and I believe that one reason for that is the feeling that we are losing power to the EU to such an extent that is becoming almost unacceptable. I differ with the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) about our membership of the EU, but he does have a point that cannot be overlooked.

Keith Vaz: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is why the official Opposition have brought these amendments before the House. The public are concerned, because they only ever get anti-Europe stories from the tabloid press. Everything is blamed on the EU, but the public would feel differently if we had a fair press that respected discussions on Europe.
	When a country signs a treaty as important as the one covering accession to the EU, it is signing up to some important principles. We said that we would work with EU colleagues and partners, and that is what we are doing. Of course there has to be some pooling of powers-that is the only way for accession to be accomplished-but there is no need for powers to be handed over wholesale.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) has been in this House much longer than I. Will he name any British Minister of the past 20 years, Conservative or Labour, who said that he was attending a meeting with EU counterparts because he wanted to hand over all sorts of powers that he did not believe that the British Parliament or Government ought to have?
	Let us put the myths to one side and have a proper discussion and public debate on this issue. Until we do that, I am afraid that I cannot be convinced about the amendments that have been put forward.

Edward Davey: I shall make it clear from the start-I hope this will put the hon. Member for Rayleigh (Mr. Francois) out of any pain-that we will not be supporting his amendments tonight. We will be voting against them, and I shall explain why.
	Liberal Democrats support a referendum on Europe, but on Britain's membership of the EU and not on the legalese of any specific treaty. We believe that the British people want to be able to answer the in-out question, and that that is the sort of constitutional issue that is best put in a referendum. As the right hon. Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz) said, that is the right way forward.

William Cash: Given what the leader of the Liberal Democrats has said about a proposed question, would the hon. Gentleman agree to a question such as, Should the UK Government renegotiate the terms of its relationship within the EU?? Yes or no?

Edward Davey: No, because we need a clearer question about Britain's membership of the EU. I hope that that is helpful, but the fact that we would want a different question in the referendum is not the only reason for our opposition to the amendment. Another reason is that we think it is fatally flawed. As far as we can see, it would require a referendum on the transfer of any competence, however minor. That could lead to referendums on issues of policy that are relatively minor and which certainly have no real constitutional significance. That surely is an unsustainable position. I cannot believe that the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) supports it, and I shall be interested to see whether he votes with his hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh in the Lobby tonight. Neither can I believe that, in government, the Conservatives really would honour the amendment to the letter, because it is so fatally flawed.
	It may come as a surprise to find that the Conservatives wish to debate referendums. After all, they have had a rather embarrassing few months after the dropping of their cast-iron guarantee. That is why my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis), who is not in his place at the moment, was quite right to ask the hon. Gentleman whether he had a cast-iron guarantee for his proposal. He was not able to answer that, and I am not surprised.
	The hon. Gentleman, as usual in these debates-there is always a bit of déjà vu to them-tried to tease the Liberal Democrats, but I remind him and the House that the Conservatives voted against the Liberal Democrat proposal on 14 November 2007 for a referendum on Britain's membership of the European Union. What is worse, they worked with the Labour party to stop this House even debating the proposition on 4 March 2008 about whether we should have a referendum on the in-out question. He says that he will not take lectures from us; likewise, I repeat that remark to him.
	The Conservatives' voting record on referendums in this Parliament does not bear scrutiny. Their record on referendums in government is worth recalling, too, as the right hon. Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz) said. Did they offer a referendum on the single European treaty or Maastricht? No. The Liberal Democrats joined forces with the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) and argued for a referendum on the Maastricht treaty, because it really was of constitutional significance and it deserved a referendum.

Douglas Hogg: Will the hon. Gentleman help me in this respect? He has argued against the amendment on legalistic grounds, stating that competence is capable of extending to the trivial and the major. Assuming that one could resolve that issue by drafting, does he object in principle to subjecting to a referendum substantial transfers of competence?

Edward Davey: As I said at the beginning of my remarks, we believe that there should be a referendum on the future of Britain's membership. There have been so many treaties over the past 20 years, as the right hon. Member for Leicester, East reminded us, and the British people have not had a referendum on any of them. It is therefore time to ask people the real question-the one that people say they want-about whether Britain should be a member of the European Union. That is the question people want to be asked, not a question about detailed aspects of a treaty.

Geoffrey Cox: Why does the one exclude the other? Why can we not have the referendum on the in-out question, and why should Liberal Democrats not agree to the idea that, when there are substantial transfers in future treaties, the British people are consulted?

Edward Davey: We are saying that they should be consulted, but on a question on which we think they want to be consulted. The hon. Member for Rayleigh seems to want multiple referendums, and that is not sensible. We want a clear decision on the matter, but, although I agree with much of what the right hon. Member for Leicester, East said, I do not think it would settle the issue once and for all, as the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) rightly said. It would settle the matter for several decades, however, and many people in Britain have not had the chance to vote because they were not around for the previous referendum on Britain's membership of the European Community, as it then was. I therefore think they would like to have their say.

Richard Shepherd: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his remarks. Parties change their positions; I accept that. It was I who went to see Paddy Ashdown in February 1992, because I tabled the proposal for a referendum on Maastricht, which was Mrs. Thatcher's last vote in this House, as it happens. Paddy Ashdown had no difficulty in saying, We Liberals believe in referendums and will support the referendum on the Maastricht treaty, but that was a particular treaty. We thought it contained considerable powers, and Paddy Ashdown gladly supported our proposal. Indeed, when the Maastricht treaty itself went to a vote after becoming a matter for legislation in the House, the Liberal Democrats took a robust position on it. The question was not, In or out?; it was on the specifics of a treaty. That was the point.

Edward Davey: The hon. Gentleman has taken a principled stance on this issue over many years. At the time of the Maastricht debate, I was one of the backroom boys for the Liberal Democrats who worked on the treaty as it went through this House as legislation, and I remember the very night of the vote to which he refers. However, we have moved on from the Maastricht debate. There have been a number of other treaties-the Amsterdam, Nice and Lisbon treaties, in particular-and the mood of the British people has changed, so we must go beyond a treaty-based referendum.

Edward Leigh: There is a suspicion, which I am sure is entirely cynical, that the Liberals take that stance because they think they can win a referendum on the in-out question, but would have lost one on the Lisbon treaty. That would be an entirely dishonourable position, so I am sure the hon. Gentleman can refute it.

Edward Davey: Indeed. The real reason why the Conservatives want to debate referendums tonight, despite their embarrassment at dropping their cast-iron guarantee, is that they do not want to debate the real issues on Europe. They have very firm few positions, as we saw when we debated the substance of the Lisbon treaty.
	I take the hon. Member for Rayleigh to task for the Conservatives' position on justice and home affairs, in particular. I shall not get into a detailed debate tonight, Mrs. Heal, because I am sure you would call me to order, but his party's leader has made it clear in public that the Conservatives want to take back competences on justice and home affairs-despite the successful work that is being done throughout Europe, particularly by Europol and Eurojust, and on the European arrest warrant. Serious crime is being tackled successfully. Drug trafficking, people trafficking, money laundering, terrorism and sex crimes of the worst kind are being successfully tackled through European co-operation, and the Conservatives' position is to remove Britain from that co-operation.
	I shall try to take the proposal seriously, even though it is seriously flawed. The Minister may provide more definitive legal views on the matter, but I wonder what is meant by competences. In explanatory notes to the amendment, the hon. Member for Rayleigh says that the competences would be supplementary, shared or exclusive competences. However, what is the meaning of supplementary in the European treaties? For the EU, a supplementary competence is one whereby
	the Union shall have competence to carry out actions-
	this is the important bit-
	to support, coordinate or supplement the actions of the Member States.
	When we look at the EU's competences that fit the definition of supplementary, we find some very interesting ones. Under the hon. Gentleman's proposal, we would have referendums on transferring supplementary competences on culture, tourism and administrative co-operation. The Conservatives want a referendum on the bulk purchasing of paper clips. That is nonsense. It does not stand up to any serious scrutiny, and I do not believe that if they were in government, they would put forward this proposal. That is why the hon. Gentleman could not answer my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough. The proposal is absolutely ludicrous.

Richard Shepherd: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Edward Davey: No, not yet. The Conservatives seem to want to commit us to referendums on almost any conceivable European treaty, however insignificant, but there are other serious problems with the amendment.
	The hon. Member for Rayleigh was present for the debates about the legislation on Lisbon, so he knows that there are other ways to amend treaties now. Indeed, those measures were part of the Lisbon treaty and one reason why he objected to it. One new procedure for amending treaties is the ordinary revision procedure, and, from the Library briefing, I understand that one could transfer competence from member states to the European Union using that procedure, not just through a treaty. The legal position in UK law is that if that were to happen, there would have to be an Act of Parliament. I am interested to know what the Conservative position is. If there were a competence transfer through the ordinary revision procedure, would that, in Conservative thinking, require a referendum? That would be a very interesting development that is not dealt with by the amendment. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will be able to explain it.
	The key problem with the Conservative amendment is that it shows no understanding of how decisions are taken in Europe. It puts together all types of competences, whether they are relatively minor or major, or exclusive or supplementary. Let me take as an example the Lisbon treaty and justice and home affairs. Pre-Lisbon, the EU had competence in pretty much all the aspects of justice and home affairs policy that it has today. The Lisbon treaty did not change the competences; it merely moved them from the intergovernmental arena to the Community method of decision making. For example, there was the transition of the European arrest warrant from an intergovernmental decision to a Community method decision. It was not the transfer of competences that annoyed many Conservatives in relation to the Lisbon treaty, but the decision-making process, so the referendum that is being offered would not deal with many of the problems that Conservative Members have been worried about over recent weeks and months. The fact that the EU has competence in an area does not tell us about the powers or scope of the EU institutions in that area. The Tory amendment is totally silent on that.
	This proposal is so utterly flawed that it should not even be supported by the hon. Gentleman's colleagues on the Back Benches. It would not do what they want, and it is so bizarre that it would cause any incoming Conservative Government huge problems. I am convinced that the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe will not vote for it. After all, he said that some Eurosceptics would have a referendum on a comma, and it appears that that is absolutely the case among those on the Conservative Front Bench. My colleagues and I will vote against the Conservative proposition, but we will be arguing in the country for a new European referendum-a referendum that people want on Britain's future membership of the European Union.

Denis MacShane: It is pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey), who, to my satisfaction, demolished the Conservatives' amendment, as well as the amendment to their amendment that they had to rush out because the original was so incompetently drafted. When the hon. Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames) asked for a definition of competences, he put his finger precisely on the problem, but he then very sensibly disappeared for dinner because no answer was available.
	Some right hon. and hon. Gentlemen have said, Let the courts decide; others have said, Let a plebiscite be the way forward. I am here to defend Parliament, which is where I part company from the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton, with his demand for a one big bang referendum that would decide things once and for all, but no other referendums. He is rather like somebody who wants to lose his virginity, but only once.
	On the notion that there is a final referendum that will decide this matter once and for all, I have to part company with my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz)-my distinguished predecessor as Minister for Europe. I ask the House to have confidence in its abilities instead of surrendering to the populist passions of plebiscites. We tried that in 1975; it settled nothing. The hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) is absolutely right: far from settling the European question, it opened a Pandora's box out of which, to paraphrase Ernie Bevin, many Trojan horses jumped. That left the Labour party in considerable disarray for nearly a generation until common sense prevailed.
	When we talk about the European Union, of what are we speaking? It is a confederation of 27 member states. It takes, collectively, 1 per cent. of Europe's gross national income-the other 99 per cent. is raised, spent, distributed, taxed and allocated according to the 27 national sovereign states of Europe. Of that 1 per cent., roughly 85 per cent. comes back in the form of agricultural, structural and regional payments to the national Governments. If we did not have a common agricultural policy, we would need a BAP, a British agricultural policy; a FAP, a French agricultural policy; and a PAP, a Polish agricultural policy. I am not going to list all 27.

Chris Bryant: Go on-if you can remember them.

Denis MacShane: I even know all the capitals, which is more than many Europe Ministers past and present can deliver.
	No more than about 10 per cent. of the laws that we decide in this House emanate from the EU; the Library has researched this time and again. That puts the whole thing in some perspective.
	The amendment is an invitation to make good the lost honour of the Leader of the Opposition, who said beyond peradventure to his party that there would be a referendum on the Lisbon treaty-he offered it a cast-iron pledge, or girdle, and an ultimate guarantee-and then reneged on it. That was a jolly good thing, because no adult party that contemplates power in this country can be going down the road of wanting to unravel the major treaties that bind us together in the European Union.

Edward Leigh: The right hon. Gentleman is being disingenuous if he is suggesting that only 1 per cent. of the powers of this country are held by the European Union. He is perfectly entitled to be fiercely and passionately pro-European, but he must not continue to argue that this is somehow a side issue. It is a matter of vital national importance, and we should have a serious debate about it.

Denis MacShane: The hon. Gentleman is Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee. I referred to 1 per cent. of Europe's gross national income-income is not law. If he, of all the right hon. and hon. Gentlemen in this House, does not know how small a percentage of Europe's gross national income the EU takes and how much is redistributed back to this country to disappear into agricultural, structural and regional funds, then how does he expect those in his constituency or the wider public to know that, given the constant disinformation that they are fed by our press on this matter?
	I revert to the lost honour of the Leader of the Opposition and his cast-iron pledge, which he tossed away gaily in a press release a few weeks ago. That is a matter for the Conservative party-what worries me is the fact that it is in the vital interests of Britain, British business and other institutions that we engage fully in the European Union. For the first time in our history, we have a party knocking on the door of power that has gone out of its way to oppose, denigrate and show contempt for our alliance and partnership and the good work that we do with the EU. We heard that in the tone of the hon. Member for Rayleigh (Mr. Francois).

Bob Spink: rose-

Denis MacShane: I give way to an hon. Member who has rediscovered the virtue of honesty as representing the UK Independence party.

Bob Spink: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, but I am an independent MP, not a UKIP MP, as he well knows.
	I cannot attempt in any way to defend the honour of the leader of the Conservative party, who made a cast-iron guarantee, has reneged on it and will suffer very badly because of it. With every promise that he makes in the lead-up to the next election, he will be asked, Is that a cast-iron guarantee you are giving this time? The public will not trust him on it. However, how can we expect the public to return to trusting the House if we will not listen to and trust the public? Why does the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane) not want to listen to the public, ask them what they want, give them a plebiscite and follow what they want to do? Does he really believe that he knows better than the majority of British people?

Denis MacShane: I apologise for insinuating that the hon. Gentleman was still a member of UKIP. He has re-ratted, to quote Winston Churchill, and is now sitting somewhere else. I heard the leader of UKIP, the noble Lord Pearson, say the other week in a meeting of British and Swiss parliamentarians that he would deny the Conservative party as many seats as possible in the forthcoming election. As a by-the-way, it was fascinating to hear the Swiss parliamentarians explain how now they had to bring-

Sylvia Heal: Order. The right hon. Gentleman may have a captive audience, but I really do think that he is going a little bit wide of the amendment.

Denis MacShane: Well, we are debating referendums, and there is no country keener on referendums than Switzerland.

Michael Fabricant: Referenda.

Denis MacShane: Referendums. It is a gerund.

Michael Fabricant: It is a gerundive.

Denis MacShane: It is a gerund. Keep your hair on.
	The point that Swiss colleagues made was that, more and more, their laws have to conform with the EU's.  [Interruption.] Okay, I have finished the Swiss example and I shall return to the point that the hon. Member for Castle Point (Bob Spink) put to me. I am here to defend parliamentary supremacy, sovereignty and democracy. I do not like surrendering to plebiscites. As Margaret Thatcher said, they are a device invented by demagogues and applied by dictators.

William Cash: rose-

Denis MacShane: The hon. Gentleman is not a dictator. Is he a demagogue? Let us find out.

William Cash: I simply want to ask my old combatant on these matters whether, given what he has just said, he agrees with my United Kingdom Parliamentary Sovereignty Bill, which was introduced last week. It would give him everything that he has just asked for.

Denis MacShane: It is to the honour of our Parliament that since 1945, under different Administrations, we have initiated negotiations for more international treaties than in the previous 500 years of British history. I am aware of the treaty of London of 1604, which settled the big disputes with Spain that had bedevilled relationships in the 16th century. The glory of Britain is that it has sought to weave a sometimes tangled and messy web, but a web none the less, of international law that can bind together nations with great differences.
	What we heard from the Conservative Front Bench tonight was the authentic voice of those deep south Senators who rejected the treaty of Versailles and of those who have rejected the proposals for an effective, binding Kyoto and then second Kyoto treaty. What the Conservatives propose is to stop dead in its tracks any future advance that would allow Britain to exercise some say over the destiny of our common continent through the mechanism of limited shared sovereignty.
	I hope that our friends in Croatia hear this debate, because the Conservatives are saying that there would have to be a referendum on any accession treaty for Croatia. They are certainly saying that if Turkey can meet the criteria for joining the EU, as I hope, there would have to be a referendum on that accession treaty. That is another debate, but I put it to the Conservative party, which I believe is sincere on the Turkish question at any rate, that I would not wish to unleash in Britain a plebiscite about a majority Muslim country joining the EU.

Peter Bone: Why not?

Denis MacShane: Because I am afraid the one iron law of all referendums is that whatever the question on the ballot paper, people answer a different one. That is what we have seen since plebiscites were introduced into constitutional theory by Napoleon III. They were advanced under the Third Reich and have been used again and again principally to promote reactionary nationalist and populist politics.

Richard Shepherd: In the right hon. Gentleman's defence of the sovereignty of Parliament, does he not recognise that if Parliament becomes so disconnected from those who send us here, its sovereignty, which has been a bastion of our liberal interpretation of our liberty, in fact becomes the greatest tyranny, and that what this House imposes without reference to the public disconnects it from the public, and undermines the very constitutional search that we have undergone to become a free and democratic people?

Denis MacShane: The point that the hon. Gentleman makes with restrained passion-we have all sat metaphorically at his feet in many debates on this issue-is precisely that this House is a cockpit of checks and balances. This House is tested every four or five years in a general election, and the public can throw us out. That is the connection. The notion that we should replace the sovereignty of the British people acting through elected representatives with plebiscite or referendums is false. In the one country that frequently uses that device-Switzerland-we see the lowest turnout for parliamentary, cantonal and local elections of any country in Europe, and a very low turnout in referendums.

William Cash: rose-

Andrew Tyrie: rose-

Denis MacShane: I will give way to a freshman, as it were, in this debate.

Andrew Tyrie: A moment ago, the right hon. Gentleman appeared to say that it was not worth holding referendums because people would answer a question other than the one on the ballot paper. In that case, why has he served in a Government who have had four referendums in the past 13 years? What support could he possibly offer them?

Denis MacShane: The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. Frankly, I found that most of those four referendums-they set up the Welsh, Scottish, Irish and London assemblies-were probably, in truth, not necessary. I would give way to hon. Gentlemen from Scotland and Northern Ireland if they wanted to answer this question: would the Scottish Parliament and what we have in Northern Ireland have less legitimacy if this Parliament had created them? I invite them to comment, but my point remains.
	I was not comfortable with those referendums. I profoundly believe that Parliament is where we should settle the matters that determine our nation's future, and then the people can change the Parliament under the laws of this land.

William Cash: rose-

Denis MacShane: I will give way for a final time, because I really must conclude my speech.

William Cash: First, did the right hon. Gentleman reject the idea of a referendum in his election manifesto in 2005, when referendums were being discussed in relation to the constitutional treaty? Secondly, I remind him that we cannot have a referendum except by using the sovereignty of Parliament. Parliament decides-genuinely and with humility-that some questions need to be dealt with by the people at large, simply because, as in 1975, there is a genuine reason for doing so. The Lisbon treaty and the current state of affairs are of that order.

Denis MacShane: The hon. Gentleman makes a perfectly fair point. Of course, Parliament can decide to have referendums on everything. The hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton adequately demolished the redrafted Conservative proposal that would open the way for anybody to go to court to demand a referendum, as the right hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg) suggested.
	I have sat in this House while the Conservatives opposed the European arrest warrant with a great deal of vigour and energy. Doubtless they would have liked a referendum on that, and it might not have been implemented, in which case some of our terrorist gentlemen would have escaped being shipped back fast to face justice in our courts. Certainly, the Conservatives vehemently opposed the bits of the European Union-they were in a treaty but given effect by European Council decisions-that deal with European defence. I am sure that they would have loved a referendum on those matters, as would  The Sun, the  Daily Mail and  The Daily Telegraph, and they might well have been defeated. Talk to any partner or ally-such as the State department in the US or their army generals-and they all think that the development of strategic thinking and policy at the European level is a very positive step.
	I politely ask that we uphold the sovereignty of Parliament. Hon. Members should wean themselves off the notion that plebiscites are somehow an adequate replacement for Parliament. Tonight we vote to reject the obsessive anti-European tone emanating from all those on the Conservative Front Bench, even if it does not go as far as the hon. Members for Stone (Mr. Cash) and for Shipley (Philip Davies), and the Better Off Out Group and the rest of them. We should say no to these ill thought out amendments, no to the amendment to the amendment, and no to the contempt that the Leader of the Opposition has shown by withdrawing his pledge for a referendum. We should say yes-as I have argued in my party with my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East, who is no longer in his place-to restoring the power and sovereignty of this House and begin to bring politics back to life in this country.

Michael Fabricant: On a point of order, Mrs. Heal. The right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane) may have inadvertently misled the House earlier, and I am sure that he would wish to retract that. As the word referendum means things to be referred, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, it is indeed a gerundive and therefore the plural should be referenda. Referendums is acceptable in modern usage, though wrong.

Hon. Members: Withdraw!

The First Deputy Chairman: Order. That is certainly not a point of order for the Chair, although it may well be a point of grammar.

William Cash: There is an expression-I hope that I do not offend the proprieties of the House by giving it in Latin-that says, Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes, and means, I fear the Greeks and those who bear gifts. I am extremely gladdened by any faltering steps towards re-establishing the position on the referendum. I do not wish to undo the idea of having a referendum on any matter relating to the European Union. But as I have already indicated-and because I will not look a gift horse in the mouth-I understand the position of my hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh (Mr. Francois). I repeat, simply and quickly, that we should have had a referendum on the Lisbon treaty.
	For all the reasons that I have explained publicly for some months now, I do not buy the argument that the treaties have disappeared. As we all know, we have been discussing treaties for the last few hours. The fact is that the treaties remain part of the schedules and annexes to the European Communities Act 1972, and the position in law-and politically-is that we implement those treaties. It is the law as implemented by this House that represents those treaties, word for word. One of my problems with that is that the world moves on, and world and domestic politics evolve, but we are locked in to legislation that cannot be changed except by the unanimous agreement of 27 member states-and that is a form of political and economic suicide. It is a ridiculous position for us to be in, and I therefore agree that we should have a referendum on any future extensions of competence, but we should also have a referendum on the consolidating Lisbon treaty.
	In parallel to that, however, runs another point, on which it is surprising that the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane) and I should agree-although I am not sure whether he would agree with the content of my private Member's Bill relating to the principle of United Kingdom parliamentary sovereignty. As I have just said, however, if we are to have a referendum, it must be endorsed by Parliament in the first place. I do not see any problem or irreconcilability, therefore, between a referendum on the one hand and the sovereignty of the people on the other.
	I would go further. I have the honour of being a member of what I believe to be a very distinguished group of radical reformers-although we might prefer more radicalism than we are being offered under the guise of the Wright Committee-entitled Parliament First. I have suggested-I hope that one day we will take this up-that we be called People and Parliament First. That touches on the essence of what I have to say today. The Labour party held a referendum in 1975. It is no good saying, Well, that was a long time ago. In reality, of the present population, including those not yet able to vote, about two thirds have effectively been denied a referendum since 1975. I concede that that was an in-or-out referendum. However, it would make sense to hold another one, as a step towards injecting some rational argument into this subject, and the question should be, Should the United Kingdom renegotiate its relationship with the European Union, within the European Union?
	The bottom line is that we are a member of a club. I happen to believe in an association of nation states, so I am extremely glad that my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) has recently been referring to such an association of member states. In essence, each country has to preserve its own sovereignty, and ours must do so in line with the White Paper way back in 1970-71, which said that we must retain the veto not only to maintain our vital national interests, but to preserve the fabric of the Community itself.
	We speak about maintaining the fabric of the European Community, which is now the European Union, but I remind the Minister for Europe and the right hon. Member for Rotherham that if we do not maintain the democratic safety valve of enabling people to express their views, with the ever deepening critical mass of integration and the consequent black hole, I fear that, given the levels of unemployment-I said this in the early 1990s-this country, and Europe, will see, under the stresses of financial crisis and high unemployment, what I predicted in those days would be the rise of the far right.
	Next to my constituency, on the other side of the A34 in Trentham, the British National party is now on the march. Indeed, the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Flello) was on local radio only last week talking about it. I am simply saying that the rise of the far right is associated with the failure of the democratic deficit. That comes from the critical mass created by European integration without the safety valve either of a referendum or the kind of freedoms that the people of this country want. The net result has been the creation of serious social and immigration problems, which I shall talk about in a moment.

Douglas Hogg: I would like to hear my hon. Friend's view on one thing. It is plain that he is resting his argument at least in part on the fact that a generation of citizens has grown up that has not had an opportunity to express a view on the European Union. The question in my mind is this: is he suggesting that after every 25 years or so, each generation should readdress the issue of our membership, or would he be content to accept a verdict expressed next year?

William Cash: If it was the right question, I could be prepared to accept an answer to it, certainly for my lifetime-that is as much as I can offer, I am afraid. However, that is not something that has ever been on offer. Let us look at, for instance, the progression from 1972 to the Single European Act.
	I admit that I voted for that Act-I have regretted it since, for a number of essentially practical reasons, not because I did not want to remove a logjam in European commercial affairs, because I agreed with that-but when it was going through I tabled an amendment that said, Nothing in this Act shall derogate from the sovereignty of the United Kingdom Parliament. As I mentioned in a debate last week, I was refused the opportunity to debate that amendment. However, in the past three or four years, the House authorities and the Speaker have taken a different view. My supremacy or sovereignty of Parliament amendments to three or four Bills have been adopted by my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney. I have tabled and moved them, and many of my hon. Friends have supported me. Furthermore, my right hon. Friend has not only endorsed those amendments, but whipped them and asked me to put in Tellers on behalf of our Front Bench.
	I regard that as extremely important, particularly with regard to the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act 2006, because my amendments would have meant the removal of burdens on small businesses, which, if we repatriate sensibly, is the means whereby we will be able to ensure the growth in this country that we desperately need to fill the monstrous gap in the public finances from which we are now suffering, with a net debt, in my judgment and that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) and others, of £3.5 trillion.

Peter Bone: Is my hon. Friend not making the case that we on the Conservative Benches are absolutely united on that issue, compared with the divisions on the Labour Benches, and that we are ready for government?

William Cash: I could not agree more. The proposals for my sovereignty Bill follow on from the extremely sensible judgments made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney on my sovereignty amendments. As I will explain, I believe that we will have to ensure that we have a sovereignty Bill that really works-and, furthermore, not half a cup of sovereignty. Under all the provisions of constitutional law in this country-they are very clear, and they include the judgments of Lord Denning, Lord Diplock, Lord Justice Laws and Lord Bridge; the jurists of this country, including the House of Lords as it was, have all said this too-we have the right in this House, on behalf of the people and for the sovereignty of this country and of this Parliament, to pass legislation inconsistent with the European Communities Act 1972 or any laws implemented under it. We have the right to override those laws, providing that any such legislation is crystal clear, and expressly inconsistent with them.
	That is the law of this country. As I mentioned in an intervention on the right hon. Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz), the problem with the Lisbon treaty and the annex to it is that, with regard to the case law of the European Union-and therefore the European Court of Justice-the primacy set out in declaration 17, which is quite explicit, constitutes guidance to our courts, including the Supreme Court, that we should apply the Handelsgesellschaft, the Costa  v. ENEL and the Van Gend en Loos cases, which assert that all the laws that are made in Europe must apply to us, and also to our law-making processes and our constitution, including Parliament.
	For all those reasons-to go back to the reference in clause 24-this is a critical moment at which to examine not only the transfer of further competences but the competences that have already been passed, and that do not work. For they do not work; that is the problem. Had my sovereignty amendment to the Single European Act been accepted, when we had a full majority in 1986, we would not have had the working time directive or the recent financial services debacle, which is threatening the City of London. I have spoken on that in the past and do not need to repeat my argument. I believe that we are seriously at risk of losing 15 to 20 per cent. of our gross domestic product as a result of handing over the running of the City of London to the banking supervisory authorities and the new financial services arrangements in Europe. That could have been prevented if we had retained the veto by passing the amendment that I proposed in 1986.
	There are issues to do with immigration, over-regulation, energy and the common agricultural policy. According to TaxPayers' Alliance, £2,000 for every man, woman and child is paid over every year to the European Union. We have to pay out a rebate of £6 billion per annum. There are defence questions, too. Yesterday I was debating Afghanistan and Europol, and the fact is that Europol does not work. We had a very interesting debate on the subject in a European Committee. As well as all those reasons, there is the fact that we need to restore growth in this country.
	The right hon. Member for Rotherham is completely wrong in suggesting that only 10 per cent. of legislation comes from Europe. The bottom line is that it is at least 70 per cent. President Herzog of Germany said that it was 80 per cent. in Germany.
	For all those reasons, plus the passerelle provisions-again, that is an issue into which I do not need to go into detail-we are losing, and have lost, so much control that we have to go back into the legislative process and rebuild our abilities through a sovereignty of Parliament Bill. That way, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney has said, we can reverse those competences-that is, future and present competences; we have to reverse both. We have to ensure that the courts of the United Kingdom will do that, notwithstanding the European Communities Act 1972; that is what my Bill will provide for.
	In the most recent opinion poll, 72 per cent. of the British people say that in the national interest we should break European law. They also say, by a margin of 70 per cent., that they want an association of nation states. Some 88 per cent. want a referendum on the present situation, not to mention any future competences. For all those reasons, we have to stop the invasion of our constitution, and of the nooks and crannies. We have to have a realistic policy on the European Union. We need a policy that returns power to the people of this country, which is what they want-what they have demanded in successive opinion polls for the past 10 or 12 years.
	For all those reasons, I am prepared to accept the idea of having a referendum for the future and for future competences, but that goes nowhere near far enough towards establishing the position that we need to secure for the people of this country. That means that we have to revisit the arrangements to produce an association of nation states. France and Germany will fight that, but as I have said in the past, I believe that we should take the lead, as we have done in successive generations on matters relating to Europe in different contexts. We face problems under the European integration process, which has a deleterious effect on our economy and on Europe as a whole; there is the prospect of implosion, which will do nobody any good. I would simply argue that we have to revisit and repatriate the powers that I have mentioned, not for ideological reasons but for practical common-sense reasons, to ensure that the British people can govern themselves.
	We would certainly win the next general election if we had a UK sovereignty Bill along the lines that I am proposing. It is there on the Order Paper; I referred to it only last week. We would then get the support of the people of this country-without engaging in an unnecessary debate about whether we should be in or out-for getting the balance right and ensuring that we had political co-operation and trade, but not European government. That is the objective, and that is what we should seek to do. In my view, that would ensure that we won the next general election with a massive majority.

Geoffrey Cox: I shall take just a short time to defend from multiple attacks this modest, moderate and practical measure offered by my hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh (Mr. Francois). Some of the positions that have been articulated today by Labour Members-and, indeed, by Liberal Democrats-are almost impossible to comprehend. What conceivable objection can there be to offering the people of this country the opportunity to be consulted directly through their vote on a treaty that transfers substantial powers to the European Union?

Chris Bryant: It does not say that.

Geoffrey Cox: Hon. Members are saying that the provision does not say that. It is a matter of interpretation. In my judgment, if the matter were taken to court, it is inconceivable that a judge would conclude that some minor transfer would trigger this provision, as the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) attempted to suggest. But let us suppose that it did. What we should be seeing today is not the Liberal Democrats making some footling technical point about the amendment's drafting, but a constructive, helpful suggestion from them on how it might be improved. If they genuinely believe in consultative democracy for the people we represent, and if they really think that a referendum on European treaties would be a good thing, they should be tabling their own amendments and walking through the Lobby in support of the Conservative party.
	Instead, however, the Liberal Democrats have produced a position that they believe will please an electorate to whom they have to appeal, as they so often do. They know that the electorate to whom they have to appeal throughout the south-west-and in the constituency that I have the honour to represent-are profoundly Eurosceptic. Through the smokescreen of a generalised referendum on membership of the European Union, they hope to persuade those Eurosceptic people, who have otherwise broadly liberal tendencies, that they can offer them one thing while doing another. That is discreditable and cynical, but the reality is that it is what we have come to expect from that party.
	Let us concentrate on this measure. What conceivable objection could there be to providing the people of this country with a say on a treaty that transfers power to the European Union? Let us examine the objections that have been made here this afternoon. The right hon. Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz), who has just returned to his place, contended that this would result in multiple referendums. Yes, every few years, if there were additional treaties that transferred substantial powers, the people of this country would be offered the opportunity of a consultation. What is wrong with that?
	The measure would not result in multiple referendums. There would be a referendum every few years, and perhaps that would induce genuine caution in the politicians of the European Union before they created more treaties that transferred endless new powers and competences to distant institutions with which the people of this country feel no direct democratic connection. Perhaps those referendums would induce a welcome caution, as the peoples of the European Union-and specifically the British people-were offered the opportunity of a consultation and given their say. Perhaps they would provide a salutary lesson on introducing treaty after treaty while the people of this country-passive spectators-have to watch while the likes of the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane) play games with, and make party political points about, the powers, privileges and inherent rights of Parliament.
	There was a piquant and poignant irony, I say to the Committee, in the position of the right hon. Gentleman. I have to say that it was an extraordinary spectacle to observe him defend parliamentary supremacy so that he could the more easier give it up; and to defend parliamentary sovereignty so that he did not have to submit the consistent surrender of the powers of this House to the people of this country. What an extraordinary irony, if there is anybody watching at this late hour, would be created in the minds of the interested spectator at the thought of the right hon. Gentleman standing up for the rights of Parliament and standing up for the sovereignty of Parliament-he, a member of a Government who have consistently undermined, corroded and eroded it for the last 12 years; a member of a Government who have consistently treated Parliament with disdain, contempt and scorn since the moment they came into power on a benighted day in May 1997. Let me say to the Committee that no more amusing, ironic and exquisite moment have I experienced in my short time here than in hearing the speeches of the right hon. Gentleman in defence of parliamentary sovereignty.
	There is a serious point here, Mrs. Heal-yes, there is, although if you listened to the right hon. Member for Rotherham, who I regret is not in his place, you would not think that anything serious was ever discussed on this subject in this House. Over the past 12 months it might have dawned on us, and the penny might have dropped, that the people of this country have stopped trusting us. They do not trust us any more in this House. They do not think that we stand up and defend the prerogatives of this House as we ought, and so the time has come when they are demanding a direct consultation on the surrender of the prerogatives and rights of this House. I, for one, agree that if one stood by the Diceyan purity of the peculiarly British notion of parliamentary sovereignty that the right hon. Gentleman was astonishingly defending, the referendum would be undesirable. If the House had stood tall and proud over the last 12 years-and, I make no bones about it, over the years preceding that-and resisted the encroachment of the Executive, and if it had stood up for the rights of the people of this country, I have no doubt that the people would be content to trust us as they were 50 years ago, but they are not. The last 12 months have further corroded and undermined that trust.
	The measure that my hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh is proposing is a modest, practical measure, designed to assure the people of this country-goodness knows, are they not entitled to that assurance?-that the Members of this House will have the humility to submit to them any further transfer of power to the European Union. I say that that is a perfectly honourable, proper, prudent, measured and appropriate proposal.
	The games played today make no commendable reflection on this Committee. I do not say that Government Members are not right to conclude or say that in relation to previous treaties, the Conservative party was not in favour of referendums, but the position has changed. The country is less trusting of us in the House. The country wants its say. If any people have been listening in or watching this debate this evening, they will have concluded with bafflement and bewilderment, Don't they get it? Don't they really understand, even after the last 12 months? This institution in which we have the enormous privilege of sitting to represent those people has fallen on hard times. The measure before us would provide a contract with the people of our country by, in effect, saying to them, If we propose again to part in any substantial measure with any of the precious accumulation of power and privilege that over generations and centuries you have entrusted to this Parliament, we must not only debate that in this narrow Chamber, but we must take it to you, the country. We must submit it to your ultimate jurisdiction, and we must ask you whether you approve.
	I say that that is a good thing. It may not conform to the 19th century notion of parliamentary sovereignty, but the Labour party abandoned that long ago. It abandoned it through the Human Rights Act 1998, and it has abandoned it consistently time after time when it has acceded to European Union treaties. Sadly, that notion of parliamentary sovereignty is shot to pieces, therefore, which is why it made for such exquisite irony to listen to the right hon. Member for Rotherham defend it and offer it as the basis of his attack on this measure.
	Parliamentary sovereignty will now only be defended with confidence by the people of this country. That is what the public are now concluding, and this is a proper measure that the House should pass. It is not a difficult thing to do. I do not see why pro-European Labour Members such as the right hon. Gentleman should oppose it. Why should we not adopt an approach that is more like that of our continental European partners and Ireland, who grant referendums on such surrenders of constitutional power?
	I find the Liberal Democrats' position utterly bemusing. I do not think they really believe in it. At one point, they seemed to suggest that if we had a constitutional court and a written constitution, they might accept the direct referral of a new treaty to a plebiscite, but this proposal is no different from that. We do not have a written constitution, although some of us believe we should start to consider whether we should have one, but this measure would become a norm, much as five-year Parliaments have become the norm. They are not enshrined in a written constitution, but can anybody seriously doubt that if a Prime Minister or Government were to attempt to extend their life by statutory enactment, that would cause uproar throughout the country? Similarly, if we enshrine this measure in the Bill and it is passed by this House, it will become a constitutional norm-a norm that no Government would risk ever denying or ignoring. It will become, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh described it, a lock in the hearts of the British people. They will see it as a right that this House has conveyed to them, and they will defend it at the political cost and peril of any Government who seek to ignore it.
	I commend to the House this modest measure. It is not the in or out referendum that the Liberal Democrats want-apparently-or that my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) wants. Indeed, I say to myself that I look forward to a time when it may be that we have to have such a plebiscite in order to help clear the air, but if we chose to remain inside the EU that does not mean that we should not have democratic consultations by way of referendums in the event of treaties that surrendered further power. The one does not exclude the other, and the time has come for this House to have the humility to accept that it is the people of this country who should decide in future on whether further powers are transferred to a European Union, in which they do not possess confidence, and in whose democratic credentials they have no faith.

Douglas Hogg: It is difficult to follow that contribution, so I shall not try to do so; I shall follow the example of my hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh (Mr. Francois), who was wonderfully brief-on the whole, I endorse that example.
	We should go back to first principles and ask ourselves the following question: what is a transfer of competence? It is, in fact, a diminution of sovereignty; although people say that it is shared sovereignty, that is a different way of saying that it is a diminution of sovereignty. As a matter of general principle, if one wishes to diminish sovereignty, one should consult the people whose sovereignty one holds in one's hands-that means the electorate. I agree that we have often not observed that principle. I am the first to admit that we did not observe it over the Maastricht treaty and we should have done-looking back, that was an error. We did observe it with regard to devolution, which is a case in point. We consulted the electorate in Scotland and in Wales as to whether that transfer of sovereignty should take place-perhaps we should have also consulted in England, where the parallel would have been even more acute, because we diminished our sovereignty when we transferred to Scotland and Wales some part of our domestic powers.
	The proposition that where a diminution of sovereignty is involved the electorate should be consulted is extremely difficult, as a general principle, to refute. I apologise for the fact that I have not heard all of this debate, but I have heard most of it and it seems to me that two substantive arguments have been advanced against that proposition. The first, which was advanced by the right hon. Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz), has force because often small transfers of sovereignty take place. For example an accession treaty in respect of Croatia might involve relatively minor transfers of sovereignty. Would we wish to subject that to a referendum? I shall return to that issue in a moment, because it is a real one.
	The second, which was also raised by the right hon. Gentleman and by the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey), deals with the competences of courts, and I shall deal with that first. Where there is a duty on a Government to subject a certain class of treaty to a referendum and the Government decline to meet that obligation, the citizen should have a right to go to the court. I do not think that this would happen often, because initially a political decision would have to be made as to whether or not to hold a referendum, and politicians are not so stupid-as a general rule-as to ignore the political climate in which they operate. Let us assume that a Government do choose to ignore that political climate. In such circumstances, is it not right that there is another authority that says of that Government, You are not fulfilling your legal obligation. I do not find that in any way repellent as a principle, nor is it inconsistent with our general constitution, because time and again the Executive are challenged in the courts by the process of judicial review. That is not different in principle from what I am discussing, because when we say that the Government decline to put an issue to a referendum, we are saying no more than that Ministers collectively decline to do that. There is no difference in principle from subjecting that decision to judicial review from subjecting the decision of an individual Minister-

William Cash: Will my right hon. and learned Friend give way?

Douglas Hogg: If I may, I shall finish this point and then give way. I regard the competences of the court as one of the serious safeguards for the British constitution. I believe that the courts have increasingly exercised a control over the Executive because of a recognition that we in this House, as a political institution, are not controlling the Executive in the way that we should. That is in part to do with the grip of party. My profound belief is that one reason that this House has fallen into disrepute in the way that it has has much more to do with a general perception that we are not doing our duty than with anything else. I pray in aid the courts to meet that gap in control and accountability.

William Cash: I could not agree more with my right hon. and learned Friend on the question of the Whips' control over business. I made a point earlier, in an intervention, about the manner in which Standing Orders, which now number about 170, have taken away power from the House as a whole. That is why we want a business committee. Let me ask my right hon. and learned Friend, if he is going to continue to pursue this argument about the courts' being the final arbiter, please to bear in mind the primacy that is asserted in the annex to the Lisbon treaty, plus the substantial amount of European case law that it represents. It would mean that the Supreme Court, which has already struck down an Act of Parliament-the Merchant Shipping Act 1988-in the Factortame case, would be inclined as a matter of law, irrespective of any political or quasi-judicial considerations, to take a position on sovereignty that would not be to the liking of many of us on the Opposition Benches. We need a proper parliamentary sovereignty Bill to ensure that we get the whole package.

Douglas Hogg: May I put to the House a different question from the one put by my hon. Friend, which, I think, answers his question? Let us say that the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh is accepted by the House and that such a duty is placed on a Government. There is then a substantial transfer of competences-I shall use the phrase substantial transfer, as it comes back to that-and the Government decline to honour that obligation. Let us say that a citizen then goes to the courts. The courts' only obligation and duty at that point will be to determine whether the Government have complied with the statutory obligation introduced by my hon. Friend's amendment. I question whether that wider jurisdiction of which my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) has just been speaking will come into play. I think that the issue at that point is a very narrow one and that the citizen would find the relief that he or she sought.
	Let me make my final point on the other objection, which was advanced primarily by the right hon. Member for Leicester, East and was echoed by Liberal Democrat Members, too. It has some force. I differ on this point from my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr. Cox), as I do not think that we should feel obliged to submit every single transfer of competence to a referendum. We are talking about substantial competences, and my hon. and learned Friend used the phrase himself. The only issue that I have with the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh is that he has not used the concept or the language of substantial competences. I think that we should do that, if this matter goes forward. It is merely a matter of drafting and it should be possible for us to deal with it by ensuring that a referendum applies only to substantial or significant-the language is variable-transfers of competence. If that is not possible, although I suspect that it will be, there is another way forward, which is to create the presumption that there is always a referendum but to contain within the legislation a power to disapply that presumption if the House is willing to disapply it. That would depend very much on the political context of the time.

Geoffrey Cox: If the European Union or its countries have spent years negotiating to produce a treaty, and the changes require a treaty and cannot be made through the ordinary revision procedure, the presumption must be that whatever is being done by the treaty is of some significance and seriousness. Otherwise, dozens of meetings and numerous years would not have been needed to bring that treaty to fruition. It is therefore highly unlikely that any treaty would simply reorganise the system of administration or paperclips. It would deal with something fundamental-that is why a treaty would be needed.

Douglas Hogg: In all probability, my hon. and learned Friend is correct. None the less, it is proper to meet an argument which has been advanced and may be relevant. Looking back on the 30 years that I have been in this place, I think, with the benefit of hindsight, that all the European treaties to which I have been a party should have been subject to a referendum. In so far as I was party to a decision at the time of Maastricht not to do that, or for that matter, on the single European Act, when I was in the Department of Trade and Industry, I did not demand a referendum. As a junior Minister, it would not have been very effective if I had, but looking back, I think we should have had a referendum on those issues.
	There may be treaties to come that will have but a minor effect in terms of transfer of competence. A Croatian accession treaty, for example, might involve some transfers of competence, but of a trivial kind. That objection needs to be met, but the substantive thrust of my hon. Friend's amendment is wholly right. If he presses it to a Division, as I hope he will, I shall support it.

Chris Bryant: It was a sadness that the hon. Member for Rayleigh (Mr. Francois) gave us such a short speech. He was not able to explain the content of his amendments and new clause. All the amendments are impracticable, wrong and unnecessary. They are impracticable because, as we heard from several hon. Members, they are impossibly imprecise in their language and confused in their effect.
	For instance, amendment 125 refers to
	treaties which transfer competences from the United Kingdom Parliament to the European Union.
	On the surface, that seems clear, but it is meretricious. No treaty transfers competence away from Parliament; Parliament always remains sovereign. We could, if we chose to do so as a Parliament, repeal the European Communities Act 1972 tomorrow.  [Interruption.] I note that two Members said that that would be a good idea.

Geoffrey Cox: What does the European Court of Justice mean when it describes something, as it has done in hundreds of its judgments, as being within the exclusive competence or jurisdiction of the European institutions?

Chris Bryant: The hon. and learned Gentleman knows perfectly well, though he was wholly inaccurate in his understanding of the process of treaty change when he spoke earlier. He knows that there are areas where we have decided that we will share our sovereignty with other countries in the European Union. If, however, we chose to do so, we could decide to leave the European Union and that would no longer apply. As a result of the Lisbon treaty, there is a process for leaving the European Union, which did not exist before.  [Interruption.] I note that the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) said, Hear, hear. Of course.

William Cash: The Minister has complete and total belief in the European Union and the European Court as they stand and in their functions, in section 3 of the European Communities Act 1972, and in the primacy declaration to which I referred. As the Minister for Europe in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, does he deny the assertion by the European Court as set out in the Handelsgesellschaft, the Costa and the Van Gend en Loos cases, which he knows perfectly well as he is a very competent Minister? The European Court asserts its control and jurisdiction over the constitution of this country and therefore its Parliament, as well as the laws and law-making. Does the Minister deny it?

Chris Bryant: Yes, I wholeheartedly deny that the European Court of Justice has the power to determine every one of our laws. That is simply not true. Sovereignty remains with Parliament because we have the right, if we want to, to leave the European Union.
	What is more, although there is a clear definition of treaty in the Bill, the definition of what constitutes competences that the hon. Member for Rayleigh provides in his proposed new clause 68, is incompetent. It confuses the concept of competence with jurisdiction and invents three wholly new legal concepts-supplementary jurisdiction, shared jurisdiction and exclusive jurisdiction, none of which exists in UK or European Community law. Moreover, the word jurisdiction is understandable in the context of the European Court of Justice, but not in the context of the objectives and powers of the EU. His proposal therefore falls at the first hurdle.
	Nor is there a definition in any of the amendments of the transference of competences. As a result, as several hon. Members have made clear today, the law would be wholly uncertain about when a referendum would be triggered. Indeed, as a parenthesis, I would add that the new clause refers to the transfer of competences, in the plural, so would there not have to be a referendum if a single competence was being transferred? What counts as a singular competence, and when would there have to be a referendum?
	Let us not look at hypothetical examples; instead, let us examine real treaties that have already been through the system. Would there have to have been a referendum for the instrument amending the convention for the establishment of the European Radiocommunications Office, which was laid before Parliament under the Ponsonby rule in December 2002? The hon. Member for Rayleigh is looking remarkably empty-headed. The instrument limited the UK's power to act and it created a new European body. Would it require a referendum? The hon. Gentleman does not know.
	Would there have to have been a referendum on the protocol established in accordance with article 34 of the treaty on European Union, amending, as regards the creation of a customs files identification database, the convention on the use of information technology for customs purposes? That created new powers elsewhere and took them away from this country but, again, we get an empty face from the hon. Member for Rayleigh.
	What about the several stabilisation and association agreements between EU member states? What about the accession treaties? The right hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg) said he believed that every European treaty that he had been involved with, presumably including all the accession treaties, should have been subject to a referendum.

Douglas Hogg: I was in fact referring to the major treaties that I was associated with, namely those arising from the Maastricht talks and the Single European Act. The Minister will recall that I specified them both.

Chris Bryant: The point is that the right hon. and learned Gentleman is starting to use the word major, and others have used the word substantial, but neither word appears in the amendments moved rather incompetently by the hon. Member for Rayleigh.

William Cash: I shall answer the Minister very simply. This is a sovereign Parliament-that is his and his Government's argument. If this sovereign Parliament decides that it wants to be able to revisit anything arising from the European Communities Act 1972, he concedes-does he not?-that we could do so, in accordance with our constitutional law.

Chris Bryant: indicated assent.

William Cash: If that is the case, it follows that all the precedents that he has just posed can be revisited, as a matter of political and constitutional will. However, only when such a thing is proposed-which his Government will not do-will we be in a position to revisit them. The Opposition propose that these matters should be dealt with in that way, but the Government are simply running away from questions to do with the sovereignty of Parliament.

Chris Bryant: No. Indeed, the point I am about to make is entirely to do with the sovereignty of Parliament. I still want to ask the hon. Member for Rayleigh whether he conjectures that his amendment would require a referendum on a treaty amending the number of Members of the European Parliament, or determining how additional Members are appointed. Does he, or does he not? Perhaps he will respond later in the debate.
	The danger, I believe, is twofold. First, these amendments would undermine the sovereignty of Parliament, as the uncertainty in the drafting would have to be clarified by nobody other than the courts. I notice that several lawyers have spoken in favour of the amendments-perhaps they are seeking more business.

Geoffrey Cox: On a point of order, Mrs. Heal. It cannot be appropriate for the Minister to descend to such an undignified submission about Opposition Members. It must be wrong to suggest that there is a conflict of interest in that respect.

The First Deputy Chairman: Order. The Minister may wish to reconsider his words, but I think that he said what he did in a rather light-hearted way at the end of the debate.

Chris Bryant: The right hon. and learned Gentleman knows perfectly well-

Geoffrey Cox: Not right honourable.

Chris Bryant: No, indeed; just learned, not right. The hon. and learned Gentleman knows perfectly well how the comment was intended. However, the point is serious: it would be the courts, not Parliament, that decided whether there was a referendum; Parliament would have ceded its right to decide. By contrast, I believe that what constitutes enough of a treaty to require a referendum is a political decision for Parliament, so the amendments are unnecessary and wrong.
	If the proposal became law under a Tory Government, that Government would be wholly in hock to their anaphylactically Eurosceptic tendency, with internal rows about what did or did not require a referendum. I can just hear the hon. Members for Stone and for Shipley (Philip Davies) condemning their Government for not holding a referendum on the slightest treaty that comes around.
	The amendments are not just impracticable, but wrong. It is the job of Parliament to scrutinise Government, and that includes the treaties that they sign. That is why, for future EU treaties, we have strengthened Parliament's power, putting in place a statutory obligation that the Government will be able to ratify a future EU amending treaty, regardless of its effect, only if the treaty has been approved by an Act of Parliament, as set out in section 5 of the European Union (Amendment) Act 2008. It is also why, for other treaties, the Bill puts on a formal footing the 1924 Ponsonby rule.
	I believe it is right that the power remains with Parliament, and that also happens to be the view of Parliament. On 5 March 2008, during the passage of legislation on the Lisbon treaty, the House voted on an amendment proposing a referendum. That amendment was defeated by 311 votes to 248, a majority of 63. It was not just the House of Commons that defeated it, however: on 11 June 2008, the House of Lords also voted against a referendum on the Lisbon treaty, by 280 votes to 218, a majority of 62.
	Even if I did support the use of referendums for the ratification of treaties, I would not want to cede to the courts the powers to decide when a referendum should be held and what circumstances should apply, but that is what the amendments would do.

Philip Davies: What mechanism does the Minister envisage to deal with the problem of political parties that promise a referendum before a general election, and then, after the public have in good faith voted them in on that basis, change their mind in a rather shoddy manner?

Chris Bryant: If the hon. Gentleman wants to talk about shoddiness, he can talk to the leader of his own party. He can talk about his leader's cast-iron guarantee and demand the right hon. Gentleman's apology at a meeting of the 1922 Committee.
	The amendments show not just a fatal inability to draft decent legislation, but an Opposition who have a wholly dangerous degree of Euro-fundamentalism at their heart. Why have the Opposition insisted on only European treaties being subject to a referendum? Why have they not included any treaty that limits-albeit voluntarily-the UK's power to act? Why not, for instance, include a referendum on the UK-US extradition treaty? Why not include treaties on reform of the International Monetary Fund or the United Nations? Why not include a referendum on any climate change treaty that comes about later this year? The trouble is that there is no principle to the Conservatives' position; if there is, it is one of swivel-eyed, obsessive Pavlovian, dogmatic and fundamentalist objection to anything that even mentions the European Union.
	This group of proposed changes, including the new clause that the hon. Member for Rayleigh tabled, seeks to do one thing and one thing only: to appease the Conservative Back Benchers and the Eurosceptic wing of the Tory party. It has nothing to do with good governance or sensible policy making. It is the Leader of the Opposition's way of saying sorry to the likes of the hon. Member for Stone-sorry for abandoning the cast-iron guarantee. Sadly, the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) has not even the grace to blush.
	There is a narrow calculation in the proposals. There was a calculation that, by showing a little bit of Eurosceptic leg, the right hon. Gentleman would secure the leadership of his party; there was a calculation that, by opting out of the largest grouping in the European Parliament, he would avoid the fate of his predecessor; and there is a calculation now that, if he offers a so-called referendum lock, his Back Benchers will not demand a referendum on him for abandoning his cast-iron guarantee. The trouble is that he is now left with an unworkable policy and a bunch of allies in Europe who consign him to the extremist margins. He is undermining the national interest.
	These amendments would subject Parliament to the courts, subcontract out our governance to the lawyers, and fatally, abjectly and ludicrously undermine the sovereignty of Parliament, and I oppose the whole lot of them.

Mark Francois: I have heard a number of winding-up speeches by Government Ministers in the time I have been in this House, but tonight the only person who was being wound up was the Minister himself. That was not a summary of the Government's position-it was an incoherent rant. Nevertheless, let me do my best to reply to the debate.
	This has been an enlightening debate, not least because it has highlighted the clear reluctance of the Government and Liberal Democrats to back the introduction of a referendum lock on future treaties that pass powers from Britain to the European Union. If such a power were on the statute book, it could strengthen the hand of a future British Minister in negotiations with our European partners, because it could be cited in those negotiations and all our European partners would be aware of it. It would strengthen the hand of a future Government in dealing with our partners in the EU; perhaps that is one of the reasons why some of the other parties in this House are so reluctant to see it introduced.
	My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr. Cox) made a robust and, in many ways, very witty speech in defence of our amendment. Several of the points that he made were unanswered by the Minister in his summing-up rant, so let me put a few points to the Minister. Of course, several of these treaties have transferred competences from this Parliament to the European Union. He knows full well that the effect of those treaties was to do that; to attempt to deny it, as he did in the opening sentences of his rant, was completely and utterly fallacious. He knows full well that those powers were potentially transferred from here to the EU, and he should not attempt to deny it in the same way that the Government constantly attempted to downplay it when we had the debates on the Lisbon treaty.
	The Minister put some questions to me. No, we would not propose to have a referendum on the establishment of a radio communications agency, any more than we would propose to have one on the establishment of an open-plan office, as the previous Prime Minister once put it when he was trying to explain away the Lisbon treaty as something that no one should be in the least bit concerned about. Our referendum lock would not automatically mean that there was always a referendum on an accession treaty-that would depend on whether the treaty included the transfer of further powers from Britain to the EU. However, if this referendum lock had been on the statute book at the time of the Nice treaty or the Amsterdam treaty, it would have guaranteed that the British people were asked to give their consent, or not, in a referendum. If it had been on the statute book at the time of the Lisbon treaty, it would have guaranteed that the British people had a chance to indicate their support, or not, in a referendum. That is the kind of amendment that we are talking about, and it utterly undermines the Government's case to try to belittle it because they are desperate to find a reason for people not to vote for it in the Lobby tonight.

Philip Davies: I agree wholeheartedly with what my hon. Friend says. Does he agree that Labour Members are so wound up in their opposition to his proposal because on these matters they are petrified of the verdict of the British people?

Mark Francois: It is a pleasure to agree with my hon. Friend in a European debate. He is absolutely right. Labour Members are very worried about the verdict of the British electorate, partly because of the way they have behaved over the Lisbon treaty. We shall get to the general election and see how the people judge them then.
	We then heard criticism from the Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey), who said that our position was not sufficiently clear and attempted to contrast it with what he believed was the clarity provided on these matters by the Liberal Democrats. Let me summarise their position throughout the whole Lisbon process. When we debated it in this House, the Liberals argued again and again that they wanted an in-out referendum on membership of the European Union. They organised a contrived sixth-form walk-out to try to get a vote on that matter, and then when it actually came to the vote on whether we should have a referendum on the Lisbon treaty, which they had promised in their manifesto, they abstained.
	Moving on to the other place, the saga continued. We should bear it in mind that the Liberals had abstained on a referendum on Lisbon in this House, despite their manifesto promise. When it fell to their peers to echo the work of their colleagues in this House and they had a vote on a referendum on Lisbon, they voted against it. They then had an opportunity to vote on an amendment on whether to have an in-out referendum, which the Liberal Democrats in this House had spent weeks and weeks trying every possible device in the depths of Erskine May to bring about a vote on. They had been desperate in the Commons to have a vote on an in-out referendum, but when the issue got to the Lords they voted against it. And yet the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton has the brass neck to come to the House this evening and say that we are unclear and inconsistent. What a remarkable way to conduct parliamentary debate. The Liberal Democrats have been completely inconsistent, and I reiterate that if they had supported us at the time of the debates on the Lisbon treaty, there were enough potential Labour rebels to give the people of this country the referendum that they had been promised all along. We know it, he knows it, his colleagues behind him know it and the Government know it too. I say to him, please do not ever come back here and lecture us on votes on a referendum.

William Cash: Will my hon. Friend give way?

Mark Francois: I could not have a summing-up speech without giving way to my hon. Friend. Just for a moment I thought so, but no.

William Cash: May I invite my hon. Friend, in his marvellous attack on the Liberal Democrats, not to leave out the Government for their complete refusal to have a referendum on the constitutional treaty and its twin, the Lisbon treaty, when they had the opportunity to do so?

Mark Francois: In fairness, all the way through the Lisbon treaty debates I was not normally accused of letting the Government off the hook, but nevertheless I entirely endorse my hon. Friend's point.
	I hope that even at the last minute, the Government and the Liberals might decide to join us in the Lobby to help to put right at least part of the damage that was done to public trust by the Lisbon treaty process. We have to acknowledge that that took place and that we are not having this debate in a vacuum. I reiterate that if the Government and the Liberal Democrats seek in a few minutes to deny the British people their say on any future treaties that transfer power from Britain to the EU, in response we will ask the British people for a mandate at the forthcoming general election to pass such a referendum lock into the law of this country. I hope that they will yet recant and support us, but we need now to test the will of the House. If that does not work because of Labour and the Liberals, we will test the will of the British people instead.
	 Question put, That the amendment be made.
	 The Committee proceeded to a Division.

Michael Lord: I ask the Serjeant at Arms to investigate the delay in the Aye Lobby.

The Committee having divided: Ayes 183, Noes 303.

Question accordingly negatived.
	 Clause 24 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Dominic Grieve: On a point of order, Sir Michael. It is now 9.57 pm. There has been a perfectly sensible debate on the Bill, but the reality is that we are nowhere near covering the ground this evening that was expected. Have any representations been made to you by the Government about coming to the House to make a statement and give us a proper programme motion, so that this constitutional measure can be properly debated? That is particularly important when one bears in mind that we will be unable this evening to consider the matter of demonstrations in the vicinity of Parliament, which is of great importance to hon. Members, amendments to the Public Order Act 1986, and new clauses relating to the Electoral Administration Act 2006, let alone complete properly our consideration of the treaties clauses that we have been debating perfectly sensibly for the past few hours.

The Second Deputy Chairman: Let me say to the hon. and learned Gentleman that those are not matters that I can deal with now. We are acting entirely in accordance with the order of the House made earlier today.
	 Clause 25 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 26
	  
	Section 24 not to apply in exceptional cases

David Howarth: I beg to move amendment 116, page 13, line 34, at beginning insert
	'subject to the provisions of section [Committee on Treaties].'.

The Second Deputy Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 59- Committee on Treaties-
	'(1) There shall be a committee to be known as the Committee on Treaties (the Committee), to examine treaties which a Minister has determined are to be ratified under section 26.
	(2) The members of the Committee shall be drawn from the House of Commons and the House of Lords.
	(3) The members of the Committee shall be appointed by the Speaker of the House of Commons after consultation with the Lord Speaker, and such other consultations as he considers appropriate.
	(4) Membership of the committee shall be for a term of office that the Speaker considers appropriate, but shall cease when a member ceases to be a member of either House.
	(5) The Committee shall appoint one of its number to the chair of the Committee.
	(6) The Committee may determine its own procedure.
	(7) Where a Minister has made a determination under section 26 that a treaty should be ratified without the requirements of section 24 having been met, the treaty may not be ratified unless the Committee has resolved that it should be ratified, and has reported its decision to the Speaker and the Lord Speaker.'.

David Howarth: I shall be very brief.  [Interruption.] Clause 26 is a general get-out clause that should not be in the Bill. The amendment would set up a committee of parliamentarians that would have a veto over the Government's power.

Question put, That the amendment be made.
	 The Committee divided: Ayes 62, Noes 275.

Question accordingly negatived.
	 Proceedings interrupted (Programme Order, this day).
	 The Chairman put forthwith the Questions necessary for the disposal of the business to be concluded at that time (Standing Order No. 83D).
	 Clause 26 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
	 Clauses 27, 28 and 35 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule 5
	  
	Amendment to Part 2 of the Public Order Act 1986 etc

Amendments made: 96, page 55, line 1, leave out from 'requirements' to end of line 2 and insert
	'specifying entrances at or by the Palace of Westminster or Portcullis House-'.
	Amendment 97, page 55, line 34, leave out from 'than' to end of line 35 and insert
	'300 metres in a straight line from the nearest relevant entrance.
	( ) Each of the following is a relevant entrance for the purposes of subsection (3)-
	(a) Carriage Gates;
	(b) St Stephen's Entrance;
	(c) Peers' Entrance;
	(d) Black Rod's Garden Entrance;
	(e) the main entrance to Portcullis House (on Victoria Embankment).'.
	Amendment 98, page 55, line 43, leave out '250' and insert '300'.
	Amendment 99, page 56, line 21, leave out from second 'requirements' to end of line 22 and insert
	'specifying entrances at or by the specified building-'.- (Mr. Watts.)
	 Question put , That the schedule, as amended, be the Fifth schedule to the Bill.
	 The Committee divided: Ayes 263, Noes 53.

Question accordingly agreed to.
	 Schedule 5, as amended, agreed to.

New Clause 57
	  
	Section 3 of the Act of Settlement

'(1) For the avoidance of doubt, the repeal in section 18(7) of the Electoral Administration Act 2006 (c. 22) of the entry in Schedule 7 to the British Nationality Act 1981 (c. 61) (entry which modified certain disqualifications imposed by section 3 of the Act of Settlement (1700 c. 2)) applied only so far as the modification made by that entry related to-
	(a) membership of the House of Commons, or
	(b) anything from which a person is disqualified by virtue of a disqualification from membership of that House.
	(2) Section 3 of the Act of Settlement (1700 c. 2) has effect accordingly, and has done so since the coming into force of section 18 of the Electoral Administration Act 2006 (c. 22).'.- (Mr. Watts.)
	 Brought up, and added to the Bill.
	 The Chairman left the Chair to report progress and ask leave to sit again (Programme Order, this day).
	 The Deputy Speaker resumed the Chair.
	 Progress reported; Committee to sit again tomorrow.

Business without Debate

DELEGATED LEGISLATION

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118(6)),

Income Tax

That the draft Enactment of Extra-Statutory Concessions (No. 2) Order 2009, which was laid before this House on 10 November, in the previous Session of Parliament, be approved. -(Mr. Watts.)
	 Question agreed to.

EUROPEAN UNION DOCUMENTS

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 119( 1 1)),

European Union Police Mission in Afghanistan (EUPOL Afghanistan)

That this House takes note of an unnumbered explanatory memorandum dated 2 November 2009 from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office on the Council Joint Action amending Joint Action 2007/369/CFSP on the establishment of the European Union Police Mission in Afghanistan; and agrees with the Government that the mission is now making an important contribution to the international effort to reform the Afghan National Police. -(Mr. Watts.)
	 Question agreed to.

Business of the House

Motion made,
	That, at the sitting on Thursday 21 January, notwithstanding Standing Order No. 20 (Time for taking private business) the Private Business set down by the Chairman of Ways and Means may be entered upon at any hour, and may then be proceeded with, though opposed, for three hours, after which the Speaker shall interrupt the business. -(Mr. Watts.)

Hon. Members: Object.

SECTION 5 OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES (AMENDMENT) ACT 1993

Motion made,
	That, for the purposes of its approval under section 5 of the European Communities (Amendment) Act 1993, the Government's assessment as set out in the Pre-Budget Report 2009 shall be treated as if it were an instrument subject to the provisions of Standing Order No. 118 (Delegated Legislation Committees). -(Mr. Watts.)

Hon. Members: Object.

ELECTRICITY TRANSMISSION (NORTH SOMERSET)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn. -(Mr. Watts.)

Liam Fox: For those who are unfamiliar with this issue, let me briefly explain the background. In preparation for the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station coming on stream later this decade, National Grid plc intends to introduce new 400 kV overhead cables to connect Hinkley C with Avonmouth. The intent is to link two coastal points by a land-based pylon system. The new pylons will be about 46 metres tall-each the height of Nelson's column-and will cut through the countryside of north Somerset.
	This debate is about the villages and towns, such as Nailsea, Yatton, Backwell, Wraxall and my own village of Tickenham, the Gordano valley and other places that will be affected. It is about a consultation that is not really a consultation at all and about a definition of cost that includes only short-term financial measurements and not wider measurements of public interest such as the environment, safety, the green belt or the impact on property values. It is also about a decision-making process that has at its core a democratic deficit where decisions are made by unelected quango chiefs who are unaccountable to ordinary citizens.
	We all understand the need for more electricity, and that it has to have a transmission network. The public meeting that we held with National Grid in my constituency, in Nailsea, was an object lesson in reason and good manners despite the anger felt by so many in our area. I am deeply proud of local pressure groups and local residents for the dignity and self-restraint with which they have handled themselves. The consultation process that we have been given has offered the choice between two different land corridors with overhead cables. It is not much of a consultation-the choice between being hanged and being beheaded does not boil down to much of a choice at all.
	Furthermore, there is a strong suspicion that the second option-corridor two-clearly represents environmental vandalism of such a degree that it was bound to be objected to violently. That always had the potential to allow the false conclusion to be drawn that corridor one was supported, and to leave local residents split. We want to see a genuine consultation that compares the wider costs and benefits of overhead cables with undersea and underground cables.

John Penrose: Does my hon. Friend agree that option two is not just environmental vandalism, leaving option one as a false choice? Option one would cause environmental damage and vandalism, too, particularly as it goes through the area of outstanding natural beauty in my constituency, where there is no provision, as the option stands, to put the cables underground-a possibility that he has just mentioned.

Liam Fox: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is why there is no real choice between one type of environmental vandalism and another. It does not boil down to any meaningful choice.
	The optioneering report shows that National Grid discarded a number of undersea options before the public consultation started. Despite asking for further information about the technical, environmental and cost considerations of placing the cables undersea, we still have not been given answers that explain clearly why two coastal points should be linked by overland power lines.
	We understand that there are technical issues, but if these can be overcome elsewhere, why not here too? National Grid's depreciation policy states that assets such as cables and pylons are depreciated over a period of up to 50 years, so investment needs to be assessed not simply as initial cost, but spread over all consumers who benefit, and over 50 years.
	One overground option that has been trailed is to follow the M5 route. That, to me, is no solution at all and simply moves the problem on to the residents of the Gordano valley and Portishead, who would have their local environment permanently damaged. Likewise, I cannot support the addition of a 400 kV line parallel to the two existing 132 kV lines.
	For a decision of such importance and magnitude, we do not believe that National Grid has carried out as thorough and adequate a consultation with the public as it should have done. If an inappropriate decision is reached as a result, we believe that National Grid's approach would be challengeable. I would like the Minister to set out the Government's views on the matter tonight. What would be the process of judicial review, at what point could it be triggered, how and by whom?
	We expect Government to ensure that the rights of small communities are not steamrollered by the short-term interests of large utilities. No one questions the right or even the duty of National Grid to find the best deal for its shareholders, but the short-term benefit of shareholders cannot be bought at the long-term cost to individuals, communities and the environment that the proposal brings. A Severn estuary route or a route underground cannot be ruled out purely on cost grounds. Those options need to be properly explored and communicated.
	Another issue is the unknown quantity of safety. The height of the proposed pylons is 46 metres. We all recognise that the issues concerning the impact of electric and magnetic fields are complicated and potentially open to a range of interpretations. Given the confused nature of the advice currently available, we believe that it would be sensible for National Grid to approach the matter with caution-to adopt the precautionary principle. This would avoid the positioning of pylons and power lines in close proximity to homes, public rights of way, community routes, schools and colleges where land-based lines are in use. We welcome National Grid's assurances on this, but that should not be interpreted in any way as an acceptance in principle of the proposed routes.
	Finally, we come to the democratic deficit. I am extremely grateful to Mr. Speaker for granting time for the debate tonight. Under current legislation, no Minister is responsible for these decisions. It is left to the unelected chairman of a quango to take the environmental, safety and economic decisions that will affect the well-being of our constituents. What sort of democracy do we live in? If there is a change of Government at the election, a future Conservative Government will restore the democratic link and ensure that such decisions are taken by a Secretary of State accountable to the people through Parliament.
	Before resorting to above-ground routes, the company should be obliged to investigate other options, including undersea and underground corridors, fully and properly.

David Heathcoat-Amory: My hon. Friend is making an extremely powerful case, which applies just as much to other parts of the route, such as the Somerset levels. He referred to the need for further studies. Should there not be an attempt to find a monetary value to attribute to the preservation of the environment and the avoidance of the health effects that he described? If that were done, the submarine option might well be found to be not the most expensive, but the cheapest option.

Liam Fox: My right hon. Friend makes a valid point, because much of the argument boils down to cost, and I am afraid that the values and the units of cost that are being used simply do not take account of the cost in other terms-in environmental terms, in safety and in terms of the impact upon the area in which we live. It will be changed beyond recognition for many years to come, and that very important issue lies at the heart of the matter.
	We need a better explanation, because we simply do not understand the logic of a project that seeks automatically to connect two coastal points by a land-based route, especially when National Grid's own chief executive has described the proposed western undersea grid, linking Merseyside and Scotland, as a no-brainer. The feasibility of an undersea route along the Severn channel has to be properly explored. Money should not be the critical factor in determining this matter, particularly when costs can ultimately be shared among the consumers who will benefit from the grid connection over a longer period.
	Those of us who are in the Chamber tonight simply cannot and will not stand by and watch our countryside ravaged by the 46-metre-high graffiti of that pylon scheme, or the property values of our constituents threatened. All Members should take note of this debate. Today, north Somerset is in the firing line. Other areas will follow.

John Penrose: rose-

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am sorry, but does the hon. Gentleman wish to speak? Has he checked with the Minister that it is all right to contribute?

John Penrose: I have not.

David Kidney: I have not been asked at all, but I certainly would not object if the hon. Gentleman wanted a minute or two to speak.

John Penrose: I thank the Minister, and promise to keep my contribution short.
	I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox)-my constituency neighbour-on securing this debate and making the case so powerfully, and I add one small but important point that a number of local residents in my constituency have made to me. They are deeply concerned that National Grid's initial costings for the undersea and underground routes-the two that, as my hon. Friend has made clear, have not been properly canvassed-are inadequate and far too shallow.
	In particular, my constituents are concerned that over the lifetime of the assets that would be created-as my hon. Friend has said, that is a long time, and could add up to 50 years or more-one factor has been left out. With an undersea or underground cable, which is a much higher voltage direct-current cable, the transmission-power-losses are much lower than those on an overhead power line. The savings on the power that would not be lost should therefore be factored into the costings, but they have not been.
	My constituents are concerned, therefore, because the costings are unfairly slanted against those two options. For the sake of democracy, it is vital to have high-calibre, reliable underpinnings for the debate, and high-quality facts on which to base it. Otherwise, there will not be democratic trust in any final decision. I again thank the Minister for allowing me to speak for a few minutes.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Before the Minister begins, I apologise for my hesitation a few moments ago, but it is customary for an hon. Member who wishes to take part in an Adjournment debate not only to get the permission of the hon. Member who has charge of the debate, as the hon. Gentleman clearly did, but to let the Minister know.

David Kidney: I congratulate the hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) on securing the debate, and I certainly take to heart the strength of feeling that he represents among his constituents. I am delighted to hear about the dignity with which they are making their very strong points of view known-without descending to misbehaviour. Clearly, the hon. Gentleman is proud of his constituents, and it sounds as though he should be.
	I had some prior knowledge of the subject because of the activities of the hon. Gentleman's right hon. Friend the Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory), who is sat beside him. I have heard the right hon. Gentleman raise similar points about the project on previous occasions in the House, and he has written to my Department. He has not yet had his reply, and I appreciate that one is due to him. He asked about the additional grid requirements that might be needed for a Severn tidal power scheme.
	I shall say a little bit about that scheme and the stage that it has reached in order to provide Members with some information about it. Grid issues, such as connection and enforcement, are being considered as part of the ongoing Severn tidal power feasibility study, which is considering whether the Government could support a tidal power project in the Severn. The scale of grid reinforcement work required there, and the cost of it, would very much depend on the size of the proposed scheme and the generating background at the time. We expect to publish the results of these studies at the time of the second public consultation, which is expected to be held later this year. Severn tidal power is genuinely an open question at the present time. Only once we have completed the work looking into the costs, benefits, impacts and risks of the viable options, and sought public views on our conclusions, can we decide whether we will support a scheme in the Severn.
	The hon. Gentleman will be aware that from 1 March this year, all applications for development consent for electric lines of 132 kV and above will be considered by the new Infrastructure Planning Commission-the IPC-under the Planning Act 2008. Currently, these decisions are taken by my Department. The IPC will not be taking over decisions on electric lines from local authorities, as local authorities are not the decision makers now. This involves transmission electric lines that affect long-distance transfer of electricity through 275 kV and 400 kV lines, and their distribution lines of 132 kV, which are lower-voltage lines carrying power from transmission substations to the end user. The IPC's decisions on these applications will be taken on the basis of national policy statements designated by Government following public consultation and public scrutiny. Decisions on electric lines below the IPC's threshold will remain with my Department for consideration under section 37 of the Electricity Act 1989, and will be determined by the Secretary of State.
	A well-functioning planning system is one of the key factors underpinning our quality of life. The 2008 Act reflects the Government's commitment to sustainable development and to tackling climate change. The current system for providing nationally significant infrastructure-electric lines of 132 kV and above have been defined as such in the 2008 Act-is still too complex and bureaucratic. There are overlapping multiple consent regimes, long and variable inquiry times, and two-stage decisions, and there can be several decision makers for a single project. The 2008 Act addresses these problems and creates a fairer and faster system. The IPC works at arm's length from Government and will consider applications for development consent for all major infrastructure projects, such as this proposal from National Grid. In addition to all the other benefits that a fairer and faster system brings, the Government estimate that the economic benefit of improving the system could be up to £5 billion by 2030.

Ian Liddell-Grainger: If National Grid says, We want this to go across country, can the IPC change that decision and say, No, we want it to go underwater, and force it to put in an undersea route? Is there then an appeal process, and if so, how long will this all take?

David Kidney: At the present time, the Secretary of State makes a decision on the application before him or her; similarly, the IPC would make a decision on the application before it. The point is that one of the decisions could be to refuse an application, just as another could be to grant it.

Julian Lewis: rose-

David Kidney: I need time to answer the hon. Gentleman who secured the debate, but if there is one last point I will give way.

Julian Lewis: I had not intended to intervene; I was here only to support my hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox). However, the Minister mentions the IPC and the new regime. In my constituency, a year-long planning inquiry found against the development of a huge container port. We are terribly worried that had the IPC regime existed then, instead of arriving at a quicker decision it would have rammed through this infrastructure project. That is why the Conservative party says that this system should be abolished because the danger is that it will not give communities sufficient protection against massive projects such as this.

David Kidney: I reject that description of what the IPC will do. It will make decisions on applications based on the evidence, the law and the national planning policy statements that I have described.
	I should like to say a little about accountability. I want to reassure the hon. Member for Woodspring that the 2008 Act will improve accountability in several ways. First, because national policy statements will be, and currently are, subject to public consultation and public and parliamentary scrutiny, Ministers responsible for the policy decisions set out in them will be held accountable to Parliament and the electorate. I should mention that the consultation on the draft national policy statements for energy infrastructure is still open and will be until Monday 22 February.
	The hon. Gentleman might wish to consider the draft overarching energy national policy statement, EN1, and the draft electricity network statement, EN5, as they explain the role of the national policy statements in the new planning system and set out clearly various influencing factors and impacts on local communities that the IPC will need to consider before determining any application for development consent.
	After consultation, we are still at the point of settling the policy statements that will determine how the IPC makes decisions. In the overarching policy, for example, there will be statements of principle on the environment, alternatives to a proposed development, good design, health and safety, biodiversity, landscape, land use and noise-all issues in which the hon. Members who have spoken have expressed an interest. In document EN5, such issues as site selection, undergrounding and electric and magnetic fields are discussed. I suggest to the hon. Member for Woodspring, the other hon. Members present and all their constituents that time spent studying the documents and responding to them now might repay them later when the policies are finalised and are guiding the IPC on determining applications such as the one that we are discussing.

Liam Fox: I wonder whether the Minister understands how Orwellian that description sounds to ordinary voters. At the moment, Members of Parliament can question an elected Secretary of State about particular decisions that affect their constituents' well-being and environment. The Minister tries to get us to believe that an unelected quango, which we cannot hold to account in this elected House, is suddenly more accountable. It is a bizarre explanation.

David Kidney: Again, I do not accept that. Currently, when the Secretary of State is asked about a particular decision, he has a quasi-judicial responsibility and I cannot answer any questions about it. The IPC will be accountable to Parliament, because it will have to implement the national policy statements that will be determined by Government after public consultation and parliamentary scrutiny. It will be accountable to Select Committees and could be called before them to account for the decisions that it makes and its behaviour. I do not accept that there will be less accountability-I say that there will be more.
	The second improvement in the new system is that there has to be pre-application consultation. The Planning Act gives local authorities a key role in advising developers as to how to conduct a consultation and the IPC as to whether the developer has carried out such consultation properly. That referee role for local authorities is an important element of the consultation process. There is no question of the developer, in this case National Grid, simply being able to run a consultation to obtain the best result for themselves. The local authority will submit a local impact report to the IPC.
	The third improvement is the right to be heard by the IPC, including in person. The IPC will have to set out clearly the reasons for its decisions, and it will be accountable to the public and Parliament. The hon. Gentleman asked me about court action, and ultimately it will be responsible to the courts if it is alleged that its decisions are not in accordance with the legal framework.
	There is a long way to go with the development that we are debating. I understand that National Grid has said that it plans to ask the IPC in the summer of 2011 for development consent for a new 400 kV overhead electric line connection to link its Bridgwater and Seabank substations and connect to the proposed new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point. Of course, as we have heard, National Grid is currently consulting local communities and people living in the vicinity of the proposed works to appraise broad route corridor options. Such consultation is a clear duty placed on applicants under the Act, but it needs to be carried out in accordance with guidance given by both the IPC and the Secretary of State. I understand that the current consultation has been extended until 22 July because of the bad weather.
	We have heard from the hon. Gentleman that constituents have raised with him concerns about the consultation process conducted by National Grid. The flavour of some of the letters that my Department is receiving, either lodging objections to the proposal or copying responses to us for information, tends to support what he outlined. There is a sense that the consultation period over Christmas and the new year was inadequate; that local people have not received sufficient information; that there has been a failure to put forward the range of options for public comment; and that National Grid has dismissed underground and submarine options as too expensive. There are also concerns about health risks. My understanding, however, is that there must be a second-stage consultation, which will run from February 2010 to March 2011, for which National Grid will be seeking views on its preferred route corridor, and on the preliminary environmental information as part of its environmental impact assessment for the project. National Grid is therefore at the very beginning of the process for the proposal.
	As was mentioned, if the IPC considers that there has not been a proper consultation with the public and local communities, it can refuse to accept an application from a developer. All developers must report to the IPC-in a consultation report that accompanies the application-how public consultations have influenced their proposals. I hope that gives the hon. Gentleman some reassurance about the way that is still to go.
	The hon. Gentleman indicated that there is a large groundswell of support for alternative routes for the electric line. The hon. Member for Bridgwater (Mr. Liddell-Grainger) mentioned placing it underground, and the hon. Member for Woodspring mentioned going subsea under the Severn estuary. I understand that National Grid has said it discounts the latter proposal on the grounds of cost and technical challenges. It has therefore not been offered as a consultation option for public scrutiny.
	I appreciate the frustration of the hon. Gentleman's constituents that that happened, but it is for National Grid, which has a duty as a statutory undertaker, to develop any proposals for new infrastructure in an efficient, co-ordinated and economical way, under the Electricity Act 1989. It must consider the alternatives and put forward the best options it has available to meet its customers' requirements. That is National Grid's duty, but then comes the planning system.

David Heathcoat-Amory: That may indeed be the view of National Grid, but does the Minister think it has a duty to demonstrate what it says, and to include the submarine route option in the consultation system, so that others can challenge and test its assertion that it is too expensive? Otherwise, the consultation process is deeply flawed, and may well be illegal.

David Kidney: The irony of that question is that currently, the national policy statements have not been designated, and the Secretary of State is still the decision maker, so I cannot answer it because of the quasi-judicial role that he might have to play in future. However, as I said, whoever makes the final decision on a planning application is currently guided by the guidance that the Secretary of State follows, but later they will be guided by the national policy statements, which will have things to say about what to take into account, including the costs of different options.
	It is not for the Government to require all electric lines to be underground, but for National Grid, or indeed any network operator or developer, to identify and consider the routeing of, and methods of facilitating, any connection before it submits an application for consent. Although it is understandable that people do not welcome the presence of overhead lines, the fact remains that they provide a cost-effective way of transferring power to consumers, and each case is judged on its merits and against the impact and cost of alternatives.
	The new system for processing applications for nationally significant infrastructure projects will enable our nation to put the right infrastructure in place, in a timely manner, to meet our energy needs nationally. It is critical that the UK continues to have secure and reliable supplies of electricity as we make the transition to a low-carbon economy, while protecting the most vulnerable from the risk of black-outs and disruptions to supply.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 House adjourned.